Review
"Separate Fountains is a gift to society - a gift of knowledge and insight into a slice of America's history." --
Book Review, Weekly Planet, August 17, 2000"Separate Fountains is similar to another young adult classic, Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird." Both explore small town racism." --
Book Review, Tallahassee Democrat, March 14, 2000"Separate Fountains, titled after the practice of segregating drinking fountains in the days when racial segregation was required by law." --
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 2, 1999An impassioned must-read for youth, Children Literature Specialists, School Media Specialists, and for one's own personal library. Patti Wilson Byars's magical touch with the narrative in Separate Fountains gently stimulates one to keep reading about cultural issues, ethnic groups, family, love, and survival centered around a family's life in a southern town in the early 1950s. It's a book today's society definitely needs. --
Margaret Byrd-Jones Associate Director of Libraries Florida A & M UniversityAs I read Separate Fountains, it became like I was actually in the story and living its pages. I read with anticipation the arrival of the next event -- and the next -- and the next. When a book is too good to put down, it's really a wonderful story. . . . It's a great book, the kind you want to read more than once. Separate Fountains is truly a classic. --
Doris Jacobs Smith Curator Black Archives Research Center and Museum Florida A & M UniversityBy turns moving and amusing, Separate Fountains tells the story of a sensitive girl's growing up in Jonesboro, Georgia, in the aftermath of World War II and the prelude to the Civil Rights Movement. The story of her education in class and racial bigotry is history written from the heart. --
Janet G. Burroway Professor of English, Creative Writing Florida State UniversityPatti Wilson Byars's Separate Fountains portrays social and diversity issues in the deep South during the late 1940s and early 1950s, issues which linger yet in our country. Her story -- rich in history -- provides opportunity for one to examine these still real issues. Separate Fountains engaged me so deeply that I read it twice within a few days. All adults, teenagers, and mature elementary readers should put this book on their reading list. --
Mary Ann Twyford Montessori Elementary Education SpecialistSeparate Fountains is a "can't put it down" book. The emotions, memories, and realistic social history that abound are captivating. A publication that adults and youth, blacks, whites and other races and ethnic groups will find educational and inspiring, it brings one to tears and gives the readers something to ponder as the story presents a true picture of what it was like to be black -- or white -- growing up in the South in the early 1950s. --
Althemese Barnes Founder & Executive Director Riley House Museum of African American History and Culture Tallahassee, Florida
From the Publisher
In writing creative fiction, one fundamental rule prevails: Write what you know. Patti Wilson Byars has done just that. Her historical fiction, Separate Fountains, is a firsthand look at a not-so-long-ago era in American history by an author who lived its pages.
In Separate Fountains, Byars combines fact and fiction as she describes summer days of suntanned bare feet that carry 12-year-old Katie Jane Taylor and her little brother, Josh, into Cletus Jones's Drug Store, the one place they are forbidden to go. Katie Jane and Josh question the rules that separate blacks and whites: after all Katie Jane's best friend is Ardella, the family housekeeper and nurse.
Mary Bray Wheeler, associate publisher, Hillsboro Press, states: "The description in Byars's novel illustrates the social structures and character of the South so vividly that readers of all ages, whether they experienced the mid-century or not, will feel they are living the story." Wheeler is the author of Eugenia Price's South.
Separate Fountains is much more than a history lesson. It is the story of how one family met the challenges of life with love, faith, courage, and humor. It is also a sotry of family values, moral principles, and tolerance for others.
