Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Children's Book Review: Goin’ Someplace Special

Patricia C. McKissack. Goin’ Someplace Special. Illustrator Jerry Pinkney. New York: Atheneum, 2001.

Follow ’Tricia Ann on her poignant journey in Goin’ Someplace Special, a Coretta Scott King Book Award winner for excellence in illustration. Mama Frances empowers her granddaughter ’Tricia Ann to triumph over deep prejudice in the 1950s segregated South. ’Tricia Ann travels with perseverance on her first solo trip through Nashville to a uniquely liberating “Someplace Special,” the public library. The recollection of Mama Frances’s model of confidence, respect, and steadfastness keep ’Tricia Ann walking on to her final destination. As a parenting grandparent, Mama Frances equips ’Tricia Ann for the reality of the world with the strength of independent learning and autonomous thinking. “Those signs can tell us where to sit, but they can’t tell us what to think,” she tells her granddaughter.
Watercolor and pencil illustrations capture ’Tricia Ann’s big steps in the world, which the author notes, parallel events of her own childhood. This book has also been recognized as an ALA Notable Book and received Parents’
Choice Award. Ages 4–8.

Reviewed by Charity Leonette, Special Services Coordinator, Allegheny County Library Association. This review was printed in a special issue of The Journal of Intergenerational Relationships focused on Grandparents and other Relatives as Parents, Vo. 7(2-3) 2009. Available online at www.taylorandfrancisgroup.com. ISSN: 1535-0770.

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