Description
Description
Winner of the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award
A Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book
Center for the Study of Multicultural Children's Literature Best Books of the Year
After a storm devastates the farm his parents have been renting, Junior moves with his family to Roxboro, North Carolina. The year is 1959, and the nine-year-old boy has to navigate the realities of the segregated South while adjusting to life in town. Instead of farming, his father works at the lumberyard, and his mother takes in laundry from the white people in town. Junior meets new friends who have a TV--and their own books! These new friends offer to take Junior to the library, and he's surprised to discover that in a clearing in the forest, there's a log cabin that houses a library for Black residents.
The library in the woods feels magical, giving Junior a sense of possibility and community. The books he checks out also help him uncover a secret he never knew about his father.
This fictional account is based on a real-life library author Calvin Alexander Ramsey frequented as a child. Ramsey's heartfelt text, accompanied by illustrations from award-winning artist R. Gregory Christie, celebrates family, libraries, and the resourcefulness of the Black community.
Critical Reviews
Critical Reviews
"This uplifting story will find a place on fiction shelves, but it also shares a piece of American history. . . . Highly recommended for upper elementary readers, as well as reluctant middle-grade readers. Reviewer Rating: 5"--Children's Literature
-- (11/4/2025 12:00:00 AM)"Christie's striking and contemplative acrylic paintings, drifting effortlessly from spare but glowing landscapes to focused moments of emotion, are a perfect pairing for the slow-paced but affecting prose. Quiet and powerful; purchase wherever picture book historical fiction is in demand."--starred, School Library Journal
-- (10/25/2025 12:00:00 AM)"A tribute to a community treasure, understated but rich in feeling."--Kirkus Reviews
-- (4/28/2025 12:00:00 AM)"The first-person narrative unfolds with simplicity, clarity, and emotional resonance. Christie's illustrations, painted with acrylics, capture the tone of events as well as the look of the mid-twentieth-century setting."--starred, Booklist
-- (5/14/2025 12:00:00 AM)"Christie's rich acrylic illustrations employ smudgy textures across town and country landscapes in this personal-feeling work about adult illiteracy that ends with a moving reflection on intergenerational connection and different kinds of knowledge."--Publishers Weekly
-- (8/6/2025 12:00:00 AM)
Publishing Information
Publishing Information
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