Segregation at its ugliest, until a little girl who innocently drinks from a whites only drinking fountain unknowingly challenges the status quo-in her socks.

It is remarkable how the power of innocence can bring a fresh perspective to injustice. This story finds a way to shed new light on the absurdity that was segregation.

This book is interesting, educational, and even slightly humorous. It is about how a young girl's misunderstanding helps create a movement against segregation. This book is an excellent piece of realistic, historical fiction and thus can be used to educate students. It provides them with a look at segregation through the eyes of an African American child who was affected by it. This allows for a deeper impact on students, as they get to see a viewpoint that they would normally be unfamiliar with.

Something very rare happened. My boy child actually recommended this book to me. We watched The Help last weekend and he told me that this was one of his favorite books and that I needed to pick it up. (It's a 3-6th grade book)
After I woke up from passing out I put in a request for it.
ETA: I'm adding his review to this one at the bottom.

A little girl asks her grandmother about walking to town and the grandmother starts to tell her story about a trip to town from her past. She was going to town with a couple of eggs in her pocket. She was being so careful but still ended up cracking one of the eggs in her pocket. She did manage to save one of them. What did she want to do with them? See if it was hot enough to fry eggs on the pavement.


She then heads over to a fountain to get a drink of water and wash off some of the egg that didn't make it. She doesn't realize that the "whites only" sign on it means anything other than you just need to have on white socks to drink from it. She has on her best white socks.


A white man sees her drinking and comes over and starts yelling at her, he ends up hitting the little girl. A group of white people stand around watching but the black people start coming up and drinking from the fountain. They all don't even have on white socks.

The boy child's review: We homeschool- so this is one of his projects:

White Socks Only is about a young girl that was not treated fairly because of her skin color. So the little girl was on her porch one day with her Grandma and the grandmother wanted to tell the girl a story. She told her that she was walking to town with eggs in her pocket to see if they would could because it was so hot!
So the girl got there but she was thirsty. But then she found a water fountain that said whites only. She took off her shoes revealing white socks then she stood up and started sipping at the fountain.
I personally loved this book. I was very proud of what the girl did at the end. This book made me happy in some parts but sad at others. The only bad thing about the story was that is was sorta short, I would have preferred it being longer. So if I had to give it a score of one out of five I would give it a solid 4/5.

This was a different approach to the treatment of African-Americans that did not follow the "white only" signs. And at times it was unrealistic. For example, when the "chicken man" came, the white man stopped abusing the girl.

The illustrations did not help either. They were hard to follow and not clear on what was going on.

White Socks Only by Evelyn Coleman is the story of a little black girl who goes into town to do things that all kids want to do, she is going to see if an egg will fry on the sidewalk on a very very hot day. After she sees that it does fry on the sidewalk she begins to walk home. One her way home she becomes thirsty and sees a water fountain with a sign on it that says "Whites Only". Now the little girl wears her Sunday best into town that day. She is wearing her best white dress, white socks, and her black patent-leather shoes. She reads the sign and takes off her black shoes to take a drink, which is something that you can see any young girl doing when they see a sign like that. A white man comes by and gets so angry that she is drinking from the fountain that he pushes her down an threatens to beat her with his belt. Other African Americans come by and begin drinking from the fountain as well.

This is a very good story about prejudice and how a child would see the world around them. I think that this story would be a good one to begin talking to kids about what prejudice is. The images are absolutely beautiful and Tyrone Geter does an amazing job portraying the words and emotions in the book. It looks like he uses oil paints which make the images look blurry but also give the images a depth while still being somewhat vague.

Overall I enjoyed the book and I would suggest reading it to any child. I totally recommend this book.

Simplistic portrayal of a complex issue.

A well-written and engaging book about a little girl who thinks she can drink out of the "whites only" drinking fountain as long as she takes off her shoes and stands in her white socks. This could spark a great discussion with kids about the civil rights movement and standing up for what you believe is right. I also love the ending and what it implies.