An American Childhood

This part begins where the previous part ended: Dillard is 10 years old, and she starts at a private prep school, Ellis School, in the fall. Dillard reviews the history of Pittsburgh, including the founding of the city and its industries. As a child, Dillard knew this information as a background of her world but without thinking about it at all.

While Dillard’s father is traveling downriver in his boat, and just after his return, Dillard discovers a book about drawing, and she begins to draw every morning. In the afternoons, she takes her baseball mitt and goes looking for a game. During this summer, Dillard also becomes a voracious reader, beginning with The Natural Way to Draw, borrowed from a friend’s father, and The Field Book of Ponds and Streams from the local library. The only problem with the latter is that there are no ponds or streams to be had in her neighborhood, and Dillard does not know how to find them.

The Homewood library was the closest library to the Doaks’ home, located in a primarily black neighborhood. In this library, where she checks out the same books as the Homewood adults, having acquired an adult library card, Dillard first learns an important lesson about inequality.