White Water invites us to wade in

Set in the segregation-era South, White Water is based on one particular memory author Michael Bandy just couldn't shake. The memory: not being allowed to drink from the white fountain.

As Bandy's (fictional) main character, also named Michael, puts it:

"I was just sure it must be pure and icy cold, like mountain water. Suddenly I just had to know what that white water tasted like."

And (spoiler alert) he finds out.

It's a children's picture book, so there's no space for a detailed history lesson and it's not the place to assign blame. It's a 32-page opportunity to open a window and begin a discussion with kids about racism. Or not.

I repeat, it's a picture book, so it's difficult for adults to gauge what the book's intended audience might read into it. And that's OK.

We should read it to them, ask them to feel what Michael feels - think about his thirst for that white water - and see if they can grasp the irony, as Michael did, when he realized that the same pipe fed both fountains. It's the same water.

Michael (the character) realizes the only difference between the water in those fountains was in his imagination.

"The signs over the fountains had put bad ideas in my head," Bandy writes.

Whatever our differences, the easy, politically correct way to handle them is to pretend we are blind. Color blind or unable to see the yamaka, turban, veil, dreadlocks, wheelchair, whatever makes the person (apparently) different from one's self. It's not completely wrong to pretend we don't notice labels or differences and instead choose to "see inside" the person. But it's only half right.

What if we go all the way? What if we see the labels, read the signs and then ask questions? Of each other?

How would that water taste?

That's a big question, and this is a book for little people. But we should ask. Maybe they'll lead us to the answer.

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I received a free review copy of White Water (copyright 2011) from Random House.