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Freedom Summer
Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Freedom Summer
Illustrated by Jerome Lagarrigue
Table of Contents
About The Book
Two boys—one black, one white—are best friends in the segregated 1960s South in this picture book about friends sticking together through thick and thin.
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.
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.
About The Illustrator
Jerome Lagarrigue was born and grew up in Paris, France, in a family of artists. Mr. Lagarrigue is the illustrator of Freedom Summer as well as My Man Blue by Nikki Grimes, and his work has also appeared in the New Yorker and on the cover of the New York Times Book Review. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, he teaches drawing and painting at Parsons School of Design and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Product Details
- Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers (June 17, 2014)
- Length: 32 pages
- ISBN13: 9781481422987
- Grades: P - 3
- Ages: 4 - 8
- Lexile ® AD600L The Lexile reading levels have been certified by the Lexile developer, MetaMetrics®
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Awards and Honors
- Children's Literature Choice List
- Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award
- Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Award
- Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award
Resources and Downloads
High Resolution Images
- Book Cover Image (jpg): Freedom Summer Anniversary Edition Hardcover 9781481422987
- Author Photo (jpg): Deborah Wiles Photograph courtesy of the author(0.1 MB)
Any use of an author photo must include its respective photo credit