Tar Beach

Title: Tar Beach

Author: Faith Ringgold

Grade Level: 1- 3

Genre: Multicultural

Have you ever wanted to be able to fly? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be able to make all of your dreams come true? Then this book will speak to you! Read about a little girl named Cassie flies above her city of Harlem in Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold!

            Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold is about an eight year old girl named Cassie Lightfoot. Cassie is able to fly around in the stars at night over her city of Harlem. It takes place in the 1930s. Cassie flies over her family as they have picnics and parties on the roof top of their building, the “tar beach.” Cassie flies over the George Washington Bridge and admires the lights. Cassie’s dad helped build that bridge and it opened in 1931 on the day that Cassie was born. Cassie dad is a man of color and therefore can’t join the union and is always looking for jobs. Cassie says she wants to fly over the building to make it her dad’s so that he can be rich and watch his building being built instead of having to work on it.

            I think this is a wonderful book full of incredible illustrations to accompany the words. It gently talks about the dreams of children of color in the 1930s and the things that they saw their parents go through. Cassie wants to make her father’s dreams come true not just for him but for her mother and the rest of her family. I like this book because in the back of it there is a page that discusses Ringgold’s background and her inspiration behind writing this book. I would have this book in my classroom library because I think that the beautiful pictures and will hold their attention because of the ideas and the words.

            Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks addressed by this book:

ELA RL 1.3 Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.

ELA RL 1.7 Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.