Many recent historical novels, including Robert Sharenow's My Mother the Cheerleader (2007) and Tony Johnston's Bone by Bone by Bone (2007), tell about civil rights through the story of the white kid who rejects his parents' racism. Coleman's novel, for a somewhat younger audience, uses issues of class as well as race to tell her story of a poor white kid, dismissed as "white trash," in Atlanta in 1947. Clyde, 12, knows "playing with coloreds" in his neighborhood is not safe, but when Dad joins a racist protest to drive out a black doctor and his family, Clyde refuses to go along. He is excited that his older brother, a World War II veteran, is one of the guards on the Freedom Train, which is carrying documents such as the Bill of Rights across the country; something about those documents means something to him. Too much message is spelled out, but the triumphant climax is heartrending as Clyde overcomes his nervous stammer and reads the Freedom Pledge to the crowd as the train comes in.

Clyde Thompson may be the shortest 12-year-old in seventh grade, but he learns to stand tall in this story about the Freedom Train's arrival in Atlanta in 1949. The train is traveling the country to bring the great freedom documents—the Gettysburg Address, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights—to the American people. Clyde's older brother Joseph is a guard on the train and has befriended a black man named W.C. Lounds, though Clyde says, "I ain't never heard of a colored man being a white man's best friend." Clyde's own new friendship with an African-American boy named William Dobbs puts him in the middle of racial tensions in his city, but the courage of William, the example of Joseph and the spirit of freedom represented by the Freedom Train empower Clyde to do the right thing when necessary. The novel is heavy-handed and self-consciously inspirational, but it's a fine story of a moment in history when times were changing and the Freedom Train reminded Americans of their better selves. (author's historical note) (Fiction. 8-12)

Set in Atlanta in 1947, Coleman's (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Born in Sin) novel looks at charged emotions in the segregated South. Twelve-year-old Clyde lives in the “mill village,” where his mother works long hours to support their family. Clyde looks forward to letters from his older brother Joseph, a WWII marine who is a guard on the Freedom Train, which is carrying the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and other significant documents on a nationwide tour. William, an African-American boy who's adept with a slingshot, rescues Clyde from a pummeling by the class bully; initially conflicted about befriending William, Clyde realizes that he doesn't want to be someone “who don't want to speak up when something ain't right.” Coleman convincingly depicts Clyde's gradual awakening to the racism that surrounds him, as well as the prejudice his impoverished family faces (“People kept staring at us like we was the monkeys at a show,” Clyde thinks when his father treats them to tea at a fancy department store restaurant). Despite the book's somewhat sluggish pace, historically minded readers should enjoy this snapshot of America's past. Ages 8-12. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Jan.)