In The Colored Car, Jean Alicia Elster, author of the award-winning Who's Jim Hines?, follows another member of the Ford family coming of age in Depression-era Detroit. In the hot summer of 1937, twelve-year-old Patsy takes care of her three younger sisters and helps her mother put up fresh fruits and vegetables in the family's summer kitchen, adjacent to the wood yard that her father, Douglas Ford, owns. Times are tough, and Patsy's mother, May Ford, helps neighborhood families by sharing the food that she preserves. But May's decision to take a break from canning to take her daughters for a visit to their grandmother's home in Clarksville, Tennessee, sets in motion a series of events that prove to be life-changing for Patsy. After boarding the first-class train car at Michigan Central Station in Detroit and riding comfortably to Cincinnati, Patsy is shocked when her family is led from their seats to change cars. In the dirty, cramped "colored car," Patsy finds that the life she has known in Detroit is very different from life down south, and she can hardly get the experience out of her mind when she returns home-like the soot stain on her finely made dress or the smear on the quilt squares her grandmother taught her to sew. As summer wears on, Patsy must find a way to understand her experience in the colored car and also deal with the more subtle injustices that her family faces in Detroit. By the end of the story, Patsy will never see the world in the same way that she did before. Elster's engaging narrative illustrates the personal impact of segregation and discrimination and reveals powerful glimpses of everyday life in 1930s Detroit. For young readers interested in American history, The Colored Car is engrossing and informative reading.
Author
A 2017 Kresge Artist Fellow in Literary Arts and a former attorney, Jean Alicia Elster (BA, University of Michigan; JD, University of Detroit School of Law) is most recently the author of the young adult novel How It Happens (Wayne State University Press, September 2021). How It Happens was honored as a 2021 Foreword INDIES Silver Winner for Young Adult Fiction and as a 2022 Midwest Book Award Silver Winner in Young Adult Fiction. It was also awarded the 2022 Bronze Medal in Young Adult Fiction by the Independent Publisher Book Awards. It was selected as a 2023 Black History Month Community Read by the Sterling Heights (Michigan) Public Library. Elster is the author of the novel The Colored Car—for ages 8 and older—published by Wayne State University Press and released in September 2013. The Colored Car was selected as a 2014 Michigan Notable Book by the Library of Michigan. It was awarded the 2014 Midwest Book Award in Children’s Fiction and was chosen as an Honor Book for the 2014 Paterson Prize for Books for Young People. Elster is also the author of the novel Who’s Jim Hines?—for ages 8 and older—published by Wayne State University Press and released in August 2008. Among other honors, Who’s Jim Hines? was selected as one of the Library of Michigan’s 2009 Michigan Notable Books. In addition, Elster is the author of the children’s book series “Joe Joe in the City,” published by Judson Press. The first volume in that series, Just Call Me Joe Joe, was released in October 2001. The remaining volumes are: I Have A Dream, Too! (May, 2002), I’ll Fly My Own Plane (September, 2002), and I’ll Do the Right Thing (January, 2003). She was awarded the 2002 Governors’ Emerging Artist Award by ArtServe Michigan in recognition of the series. I’ll Do the Right Thing was awarded the 2004 Atlanta Daily World “Atlanta Choice Award” for children’s books. Elster was honored with a 2017 Kresge Artist Fellowship in Literary Arts, a program of The Kresge Foundation. In addition, Elster’s essays have appeared in national publications including Ms., World Vision, Black Child, and Christian Science Sentinel magazines. Her short story “Alphabet Day” was published in the First Annual Metro Times-Detroit Fiction Issue. She has been awarded three residencies at the internationally acclaimed Ragdale Foundation (Lake Forest, Illinois). She was the featured author for the Black Her Stories podcast, season one, episode five. Elster was selected to be a member of the 2020-2022 Live Coal Gallery/Knight Foundation collaborative. She is frequently invited to speak at schools, libraries, and conferences throughout the state of Michigan and across the United States. Engagements include the following representative events: In 2023, Elster was the keynote speaker when How It Happens was selected as the Black History Month Community Read at the Sterling Heights (Michigan) Public Library. She was a panelist for “Black Trauma, Black Joy – Telling Hard Stories to Young Readers” at the Association of Writers and Writing Professionals (AWP) Conference, Seattle, Washington. She was a presenter for “Oral Histories and the Creation of Historical Fiction for Young Readers” at the Michigan Reading Association 67th Annual Conference, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Elster In 2022, Elster was a guest presenter for two programs at the Detroit Historical Museum. She was the keynote speaker for the Warren Consolidated Schools Writing Celebration (Michigan). She was also a guest speaker for the Kalamazoo (Michigan) Public Library’s Youth Author Series. In 2021, Elster was a guest author at the Get Inked Teen Writing Conference at St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana. She was a guest presenter for the Room Project’s Women in Prose from Wayne State University Press event and was a panelist for the Wayne State University Press Publishing Symposium. She was a featured author for the Jackson County (Michigan) Intermediate School District’s Jackson Reads! literacy program.
