“Trouble with a capital T”

                                                             Riding to Washington

                                                               By Gwenyth Swain

                                                         Illustrated by David Geister

            Have you ever wanted to know what it was like to live when not everybody had the same rights? I sure have, and the book, Riding to Washington, really helps explain what it would be like. The story is about a little girl who goes to Washington with her dad to see Dr. King give a speech. Her mother sends her with her dad, because the little girl gets into too much trouble for her mom to see about along with the other kids and household duties. The little girl and her dad get on a train with all the colored people from her dad’s work. Along the way the little girl and an older black woman have to use the restroom so the bus pulls over to let them off. The boy at the desk wouldn’t give them the key to go to the restroom, because the woman was black. The little girl talked the white boy into giving them the key, because she told him it was the right thing to do. When the little girl and the black woman gave the key back to the boy and told him thank you he pretended not to notice that they had even had the key. They got back on the bus and they sang songs all the way to Washington DC. Once they arrived in Washington DC they saw tons of other buses of people who came to listen to the speech. Even though they were miles away from Dr. King the little girl said “I was sure he was looking right at me.” (Swain). The little girl didn’t know why Dr. King was talking about this dream of his but she understood it once the black woman put her hand on her shoulder. The little girl said “Mrs. Tayler gazed at me, tears streaming down her face. And that’s when I knew it that the dream belonged not just to Dr. King and Mrs. Taylor and her husband, but to me and Daddy, and maybe even that boy at the gas station, too.”

            This book really touched me! It made me realize how different times were back in the 1960’s. Riding to Washington would be a good book to read to third through fifth graders. This book would be really good to introduce the topic of Civil Rights. I think it would be neat to get the students to write about what they would have done if they had been on the bus and couldn’t go into the restroom at a gas station, because they weren’t allowed due to their skin color. This book is really good and makes me want to make a difference in the world today. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did!