Ruth and the Green Book

Calvin Alexander Ramsey · Gwen Strauss

Nov 2010 · Carolrhoda Books

About this ebook

Ruth was so excited to take a trip in her family's new car! In the early 1950s, few African Americans could afford to buy cars, so this would be an adventure. But she soon found out that black travelers weren't treated very well in some towns. Many hotels and gas stations refused service to black people. Daddy was upset about something called Jim Crow laws...

Finally, a friendly attendant at a gas station showed Ruth's family The Green Book. It listed all of the places that would welcome black travelers. With this guidebook—and the kindness of strangers—Ruth could finally make a safe journey from Chicago to her grandma's house in Alabama.

Ruth's story is fiction, but The Green Book and its role in helping a generation of African American travelers avoid some of the indignities of Jim Crow are historical fact.

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About the author

Calvin Alexander Ramsey is an Atlanta-based playwright, photographer, folk art painter, and children's book author. His plays have been performed across the United States and his picture books have won numerous awards including an ALA Notable Children's Book, a Jane Addams Children's Book Award Honor, and a Children's Book Committee at Bank Street College Best Children's Book of the Year. He is a former Advisory Board Member of the Robert Woodruff Library Special Collections at Emory University in Atlanta. He is also a recipient of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Drum Major for Justice Award. He is the father of three children, all of whom are writers. Gwen Strauss's book of poems, Trail of Stones, with illustrations by Anthony Browne was published by Knopf in New York and Walker Books in London. The Night Shimmy (Random House), a children's book with the same illustrator, has been translated into several languages. She is an award-winning poet and her writing has appeared in many publications, including the London Sunday Times, The New Republic, New England Review, Kenyon Review, Tampa Review, and Antioch Review. She works as the on-site director at the Brown Foundation Fellowship Program at the Dora Maar House in Ménerbes, France. Floyd Cooper was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on January 8, 1956. He received a degree in fine arts from the University of Oklahoma. After graduating, he worked as an artist for a major greeting card company. In 1984, he came to New York City to pursue a career as an illustrator of books. The first book he illustrated was Grandpa's Face written by Eloise Greenfield. He received a Coretta Scott King Award for his illustrations in The Blacker the Berry and a Coretta Scott King Honor for Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea and I Have Heard of a Land. Floyd Cooper illustrator, and author, published over 96 books. On July 16, 2021, he died from cancer in Easton, PA. He was 65.