I AM THE RIVER

A sprawling account of Sarah Elizabeth Ray’s fight for equality, set against the historical tapestry of the Detroit River.

Using an ambling narrative style that frequently calls back to earlier pages, Henderson and Gauch share vignettes of the river’s past. They begin with canoes steered by Indigenous people, then briefly delve into the river’s role carrying freedom-seeking enslaved people to Canada, before jumping forward to early-20th-century Detroit and the Boblo boats (named for Boblo Island Amusement Park) that ferried people to an Underground Railroad stop–turned–pleasure island. Each fascinating stopover could anchor its own book, but combined, they feel rather fleeting, and while the imagery of personified islands and cities is often lovely, some long passages are difficult to decipher. When readers finally meet Sarah Elizabeth Ray and the focus shifts to a single event, the book really sets sail. Sarah, a young Black graduate of secretarial school, plans to celebrate on Boblo Island. But after being asked to leave the segregated boat, she sues. With the help of a young Thurgood Marshall before he joined the Supreme Court, she wins, 10 years before the better-publicized Rosa Parks case. While the theme of interconnectedness is laudable, readers may be left wanting more information about this civil rights activist. Proud, unfussy digital illustrations are enlightening; some, such as a boat sailing down the gutter, segregating the passengers, are outstanding.

Though the parts don’t coalesce into a stronger whole, the pieces are still worth reading.