Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss. ( )

This fictional story, based on the author’s own recollections of taking a train during the era of Jim Crow, describes the experiences of a young African-American boy, named Michael, who travels with his grandmother from Alabama to Ohio in the early 1960s to visit family. As they pass through different states, signs designating certain cars as “whites only” go up and down, depending on the state. When Michael is able to mingle with whites though, he makes a white friend, Bobby Ray, and they immediately bond over shared interests.

An Author’s Note at the end of the story gives a short history of laws involving race segregation in railroads.

Award-winning illustrator James E. Ransome created lush watercolors to help tell the story.

Evaluation: Readers (suggested age is 5 and up) will be able to deduce that the system for segregation was irrational and unfair even though the author doesn’t hammer in this point. It is also clear from the story that who we are and what we like and don’t like is a much more meaningful criterion for friendship than superficial skin color. ( )