BLACK AND WHITE AIRMEN

In spite of World War II, racism and the vagaries of time, John Lear and Herb Heilbrun became friends. Herb is white; John is black. They grew up in the same neighborhood in Cincinnati and were in the same third-grade class. A class picture from 1928 shows John standing right in front of Herb, yet because of the color line in American society and the military, it took a journey from home to war, and back home again, and several years after that, before they became friends. Photographs, maps and a variety of other illustrations offer visual appeal to an otherwise uninspiring text. Though Fleischman dismisses source notes as too scholarly and doesn’t include many resources for young readers, he does recommend several websites. The lackluster title and busy text may limit the appeal to WWII buffs. (Nonfiction. 10+)