Freedom Summer (book)

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Freedom Summer
Freedomsummerbook.jpg
Author Deborah Wiles
Illustrator Jerome Lagarrigue
Language English
Genre Children's literature
Publisher Simon & Schuster
Publication date
2002
Pages 32 pages
ISBN 978-0-689-87829-9
OCLC 57510775

Freedom Summer book written by Deborah Wiles and illustrated by Jerome Lagarrigue. Originally published as a hardcover edition in 2001, the book is now available as a paperback from Simon & Schuster. There is also a 2010 book by Bruce Watson by the same name, but the Watson book is written for adults; the Wiles book is for all ages.

Summary

The set is in Mississippi during the summer of 1964, a summer of desegregation in the South, the book is about two best friends. John Henry is black and Joe is white. They do everything together, such as swimming in a creek. They cannot swim in the town pool together because blacks are not allowed to use the public swimming pool.

Joe is then told that a law has been passed that blacks can do everything that whites can do. He is really excited because this means that he can go to the town pool tomorrow with John Henry. The boys are more excited than ever before but when they arrive at the town pool the following day, they are in shock because the town pool has been closed. The entire pool has been filled with black sticky disgusting tar as white people would rather close down the entire pool instead of sharing it with black people. They did not want these people to have their own lives so they turned them down. No voting for them.

The boys are heavily disappointed and the book ends with the two boys entering a grocery store which was previously for whites only.

Awards

Illustrator Jerome Lagarrigue won the John Steptoe Award for New Talent[1] for this book. In 2002 the book won the Ezra Jack Keats Award[2] for best new picture book writer of the year and best new illustrator.

References

  1. List of John Steptoe Award for New Talent winners [1]"
  2. List of Ezra Jack Keats Award winners [2]"