An African American family becomes a new kind of pioneer
Leaving behind Big Mama, loving relatives, and the familiar red soil and cotton fields of Alabama, Jessie and her family are going north to Nebraska. They are pioneers searching for a better life, one with decent schools and jobs. But traveling through the segregated South is difficult for an African American family in the 1960s. With most public places reserved for "whites only," where will they stop to get gas and food?
Lyrical free verse and evocative paintings capture the rhythm of the road and a young girl's longing as she wonders: Will I like it there? Will I like the North?

Going North

Children's Books

Jerome Lagarrigue

Janice N. Harrington

Literature & Fiction

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

Freedom Summer

John Henry swims better than anyone I know. He crawls like a catfish, blows bubbles like a swamp monster, but he doesn't swim in the town pool with me. He's not allowed. Joe and John Henry are a lot alike. They both like shooting marbles, they both want to be firemen, and they both love to swim. But there's one important way they're different: Joe is white and John Henry is black and in the South in 1964, that means John Henry isn't allowed to do everything his best friend is. Then a law is passed that forbids segregation and opens the town pool to everyone. Joe and John Henry are so excited they race each other there...only to discover that it takes more than a new law to change people's hearts. This stirring account of the "Freedom Summer" that followed the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 powerfully and poignantly captures two boys' experience with racism and their friendship that defies it.

Deborah Wiles

Atheneum Books for Young Readers

A collection of poems describes a young boy's life with his working mother as he establishes his own identity and develops a close relationship with his mother's friend, Blue. Full color.

My Man Blue

Nikki Grimes

Teen & Young Adult

Perfection Learning

Whooo-ooo! Train's a' coming! James can't wait to get on board and go visit his uncle way up north in New York City. But he also just wishes he could take a little bit of home along with him-things like baseball games, and the special birthday cake Mama always makes. Will Uncle Romie, who's some kind of artist, know about things like that? Young readers will feel as if they're discovering the city's wonders, and making an unexpected friend, right along with James in this vibrant story, expressively illustrated by Coretta Scott King Award winner Jerome Lagarrigue. A how-to section on storytelling collages and a short biography of Romare Bearden are included.

Me and Uncle Romie: A Story Inspired by the Life and Art of Romare Beardon

Claire Hartfield

Arts, Music & Photography

Dial Books

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Books by Jerome Lagarrigue