Like Miller's Zora Neale Hurston and the Chinaberry Tree (1996), this picture book is based on a true episode in the life of a great African American writer. Miller focuses his story on the stirring final chapters of Wright's autobiography Black Boy (1945), in which he describes his struggle to get books from the whites-only library in Memphis. Christie's powerful impressionistic paintings in acrylic and colored pencil show the harsh racism in the Jim Crow South, where the young man has to act subservient, in the library and in the office where he works, pretending that he is borrowing the books for his white boss. There are also strong portraits of Wright reading avidly through the night, lost in the world of books. At first he reads in secret, then he dares to bring his books to the office, and finally, he is on a train to Chicago, remembering the books he has read about all kinds of people who suffered as he did and who longed for the same freedom. Words and pictures express the young man's loneliness and confinement and, then, the power he found in books. (Reviewed December 1, 1997)

In a fictionalized episode from a scene in 'Black Boy', Wright's autobiography, the seventeen-year-old African American is barred from the library. Not enough information is provided in the story to make this a useful introduction to the noted literary figure; though helpful, a brief author's note about Wright's life is tucked away at the back of the book. The illustrations competently portray Wright's growth and maturing.

An episode from the autobiography of Richard Wright is skillfully fictionalized, resulting in a suspenseful and gratifying story about the power of reading. Growing up in the South in the 1920s, Wright was eager to learn to read, but barred from using libraries because of his race. When he was 17, he went alone to Memphis, where he convinced a white man, Jim Falk, to lend him his library card (so that he could check out books by pretending to get them for Falk). There is a perceptible sense of danger as the librarian (a caricature) quizzes him, and triumph when a whole new world is opened to Wright, who is shown reading all night. While background details are softened and ``colored boy'' is the worst epithet in the book, the book is true to the essence of the events described. Christie's illustrations complement the text; he concentrates on the characters' faces and allows other details to remain less distinct. Readers see Wright's expression change, from when he is alone and most himself, to when he must put on a mask to be safe, to avoid confronting white people. A challenging endeavor, and an accomplished one. (Picture book. 5-9)"