The True Story of A Remarkable Friendship
A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
Scholastic Press
Published June 2022 40 pages
Author: Andrea Davis Pinkney
Illustrator: Keith Henry Brown
Characters: Tybre Faw and John Lewis
Overview:
"When young Tybre Faw discovers John Lewis and his heroic march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in the fight for voting rights, Tybre is determined to meet him. Tybre’s two grandmothers take him on the seven-hour drive to Selma, Alabama, where Lewis invites Tybre to join him in the annual memorial walk across the Bridge. And so begins a most amazing friendship!"
Tantalizing taste:
" When you're a kid from
Johnson City, Tennessee,
home to the Tweetsie Trail
and a lake called Boone,
when you're a kid
growing up
in the days of Black Lives Matter,
you know the power of hope
that glistens at sunrise.
Tybre's grandmothers know it, too.
They pour all their hopes
into that child's future.
In their eyes, he is the light
that shines on tomorrow,
while his brilliance flickers today."
And something more: At the back of the book, the Two Journeys, One Dream essay explains: "After a moving and magical meeting with the congressman, and joining him for the walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on that day in 2018, Tybre stayed friends with John. Tybre quickly dove into activism. He marched for school safety, human rights, immigrant equality, and any other cause he believed was worth fighting for ...
Congressman John Lewis died on July 17, 2020 ... Tybre, now twelve years old, was invited to recite the congressman's favorite poem, 'Invictus,' by William Ernest Henley.
Tybre finished by saying, 'John Lewis was my hero, my friend. Let's honor him by getting in good trouble.'"