Tar Beach

On summer nights in Harlem, eight-year-old Cassie Louise Lightfoot lies on the rooftop of her apartment building, affectionaly named tar beach, looking up at the stars. Then she flies. Faith Ringgold's luminous paintings carry Cassie above the George Washington Bridge, above the union that has denied her father membership, above everything that has tried to hold her family down. It is a book about the power of imagination, a true American classic that handles difficult truths with honesty and tenderness.