Joe and John Henry do everything together, from shooting marbles to shelling butterbeans. But when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is passed and the town pool is opened to blacks and whites alike, the two boys discover that the workers have filled in the pool with tar. This picture book is based on the author's own childhood growing up in rural Alabama and Mississippi. Full color.
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.