Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Colored Car
    Unavailable
    The Colored Car
    Unavailable
    The Colored Car
    Ebook150 pages2 hours

    The Colored Car

    By Jean Alicia Elster

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    In The Colored Car, Jean Alicia Elster, author of the award-winning Who's Jim Hines?, follows another member of the Ford family coming of age in Depression-era Detroit. In the hot summer of 1937, twelve-year-old Patsy takes care of her three younger sisters and helps her mother put up fresh fruits and vegetables in the family's summer kitchen, adjacent to the wood yard that her father, Douglas Ford, owns. Times are tough, and Patsy's mother, May Ford, helps neighborhood families by sharing the food that she preserves. But May's decision to take a break from canning to take her daughters for a visit to their grandmother's home in Clarksville, Tennessee, sets in motion a series of events that prove to be life-changing for Patsy.

    After boarding the first-class train car at Michigan Central Station in Detroit and riding comfortably to Cincinnati, Patsy is shocked when her family is led from their seats to change cars. In the dirty, cramped "colored car," Patsy finds that the life she has known in Detroit is very different from life down south, and she can hardly get the experience out of her mind when she returns home-like the soot stain on her finely made dress or the smear on the quilt squares her grandmother taught her to sew. As summer wears on, Patsy must find a way to understand her experience in the colored car and also deal with the more subtle injustices that her family faces in Detroit. By the end of the story, Patsy will never see the world in the same way that she did before.

    Elster's engaging narrative illustrates the personal impact of segregation and discrimination and reveals powerful glimpses of everyday life in 1930s Detroit. For young readers interested in American history, The Colored Car is engrossing and informative reading.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWayne State University Press
    Release dateSep 13, 2013
    ISBN9780814336083
    Unavailable
    The Colored Car
    Author

    Jean Alicia Elster

    Jean Alicia Elster is a professional writer of fiction for children and young adults. She is the granddaughter of Douglas and Maber (May) Jackson Ford, whose family story is the basis of The Colored Car. Her other books include Who's Jim Hines? (Wayne State University Press, 2008), which was selected as a Michigan Notable Book and a ForeWord Book of the Year finalist; I'll Do the Right Thing; I'll Fly My Own Plane; I Have a Dream, Too!; and Just Call Me Joe Joe.

    Related to The Colored Car

    Related ebooks

    Children's Historical For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Growing Up Sansei in LA

      Jun 23, 2020

      Growing Up Sansei in LA
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Nonfiction No. 11

      Dec 7, 2021

      The Art of Nonfiction No. 11
      26 min read

    • Article

      The Death Of An Adjunct

      Apr 8, 2019

      The Death Of An Adjunct
      12 min read

    • Article

      A Risk That Worked: Talking About Race Head-on With Neighbors

      Sep 27, 2021

      When three neighbors – two white and one Black – talk about race, they learn the benefits of seeking, not to be understood, but to understand.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Allegiance

      Nov 6, 2023

      Allegiance
      12 min read

    • Article

      The Long Road home

      Oct 20, 2022

      The Long Road home
      13 min read

    • Article

      Echoes All Around

      Oct 27, 2022

      Echoes All Around
      10 min read

    • Article

      Locals

      Jun 11, 2021

      Locals
      26 min read

    • Article

      It All Begins in Love

      Dec 1, 2023

      It All Begins in Love
      9 min read

    • Article

      Obreros Unidos

      Mar 7, 2023

      Obreros Unidos
      13 min read

    • Article

      Projections of Life

      Jun 1, 2023

      Projections of Life
      14 min read

    • Article

      Don’t Call Slaves “Immigrants”

      Mar 31, 2017

      You know honey, us colored folks is branches without roots and that makes things come round in queer ways. –Zora Neale Hurston   Ben Carson’s comments earlier this month equating immigrants and slaves didn’t surprise me, and not just because the r

      10 min read

    • Article

      Free in D.C.

      May 16, 2019

      Free in D.C.
      7 min read

    • Article

      Piecing Our Past: Quilts and Genealogy

      Aug 2, 2023

      Phyllis Biffle Elmore was little more than a toddler when her life changed dramatically: she moved from her birthplace of Detroit to Alabama to live with her maternal grandparents. Phyllis was a child of the Great Migration. The time period from 1910

      5 min read

    • Article

      Déja Vû

      Nov 6, 2023

      Déja Vû
      14 min read

    • Article

      Back To The Future

      Nov 12, 2019

      Back To The Future
      8 min read

    • Article

      Southland

      Jan 5, 2021

      Southland
      4 min read

    • Article

      In Defense of Dobie

      Sep 17, 2019

      In Defense of Dobie
      9 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Colored Car

    4/5

    1 rating1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      A moving, first-hand account of a young girl's first encounter with Jim Crow Laws. Patsy doesn't understand why she and her family must move to the "colored car" when their train reaches Cincinnati. Author is from Detroit, Michigan.