Goin Someplace Special by Patricia
C. McKissack
Great Book!!
Confronted with the indignities and humiliations of segregated Nashville
in the 1950s, young Tricia Ann holds her head high and remembers that
she is somebody, a human being--no better, no worse than anybody else
in this world. For the first time, Tricia Ann has been allowed to venture
outside her community all by herself. Her grandmother has prepared her
well, fortifying her with enough love, respect, and pride to overcome any
situation. Tricia Ann, though frustrated by the Jim Crow laws that forbid
her, as an African American, to enter certain restaurants and hotels, or
even to sit on park benches marked For Whites Only, rises above her
pain and makes her way to one of the only places in the city that
welcomes her with open arms: the public library. Drawing on her own
Nashville childhood, Newbery Honor-winning author Patricia C.
McKissack (The Dark- Thirty) brings the injustices of segregation to life in
this bittersweet picture book. Illustrator Jerry Pinkney, four-time Coretta
Scott King Award winner and four-time Caldecott Honor Medalist,
captures the spirit of the 50s with his lovely watercolors. McKissack and
Pinkney previously collaborated on Mirandy and Brother Wind. (Ages 3
to 7) --Emilie Coulter
Personal Review: Goin Someplace Special by Patricia C.
McKissack
Growing up in Nashville, Tennessee in the 1950s was not easy for African-
American children. Most public places--including hotels, restaurants,
churches, movie theaters, parks--were open only to whites. On buses, only

seats in the back rows were available to them, even if the front of the bus
was empty.
But as the author explains in her endnote, the board of Nashville's public
library in the late 1950s voted to fully integrate, and opened the main
downtown branch fully to all. Like Andrew Carnegie, whose wealth helped
to build it, her grandmother considered the library more exciting,
interesting, informative than any place else. Her grandmother made it into
a "doorway to freedom."
This is a fictionalized story of the author's youth--an afternoon on which the
main character, Tricia Ann, took a bus from home to downtown and the
public library. She encountered much hatred en route, but she also met
some love. She gave up her seat to a friend of her mother when the rear
section was full. Mrs. Granell called after her, "Carry yo'self proud."
Her friend Jimmy Lee instructed her, "Don't let those signs steal yo'
happiness," and another gentleman at the Southland Hotel told her she
resembled an angel from heaven. She also received encouragement from
a kindly white gardener, Blooming Mary, to recall the lessons her
deceased grandmother had taught her. Lots more happens here besides.
In summation, a young woman is born.
"You are somebody, a human being," her grandmother had said. The
author shows that arriving to a place is not always easy. But quitting is not
the route to take.
Patricia McKissack's grandmother was right: Libraries give a special gift.
Help your kids find out what and why with this book.
--Alyssa A. Lappen
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