Jennifer Tiritilli Ranu

Colorful Journey Jennifer Tiritilli Ranu

Colorful Journey, historical fiction, told by Sweety, a young African American girl in the 1950s begins at the Great Falls when George Washington and Alexander Hamilton galloped on horses in this area to plan the first industrial city in America - Paterson, New Jersey. Sweety describes the living and working conditions for migrant factory workers, and fun games she and her Irish American and Italian American friends play at the foot of Garret Mountain. A bossy groundhog promises to take the neighborhood kids on a colorful journey through Garret Mountain if Sweety's friend, Giuliana can guess his name. The groundhog leads the neighborhood kids to the Morris Canal Bank, over railroad tracks, to an overflowing watering spring where they meet a fox. They travel through Garret Mountain's wilderness, see a moving locomotive, and meet Sir Vincent of Paterson at Lambert Castle. Throughout this colorful journey, Sweety wonders what our Founding Fathers would think about the changes that have taken place in this same area where they explored nearly two hundred years ago, and what the Great Falls and Garret Mountain will look like in the next century.