March Forward, Girl: From Young Warrior to Little Rock Nine by Melba Pattillo Beals; illus. by Frank Morrison Intermediate, Middle School Houghton 214 pp. 1/18 978-1-328-88212-7 $16.99 Beals, author of the adult memoir Warriors Don’t Cry, received the Congressional Gold Medal for her bravery in helping to integrate Central High School in 1957 as one […]
Review of March Forward, Girl: From Young Warrior to Little Rock Nine
May 16, 2018 by Leave a Comment
On Rising
April 4, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Fifty years ago today — April 4, 1968 — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Andrea Davis Pinkney’s transcendent Martin Rising: Requiem for a King (Scholastic, 2018), brilliantly illustrated by her husband, Brian Pinkney, honors the civil rights icon’s life and work by shining light on his death. Roger calls the […]
Review of Martin Rising: Requiem for a King
March 1, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Martin Rising: Requiem for a King by Andrea Davis Pinkney; illus. by Brian Pinkney Intermediate, Middle School Scholastic 128 pp. 1/18 978-0-545-70253-9 $19.99 A creative poetic celebration of the contributions of Martin Luther King Jr. that also, as a song for the dead, includes a meticulous explanation of how and why he died. Henny Penny […]
Books for Martin Luther King Day 2018
January 15, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Perhaps now more than ever, Martin Luther King Jr. Day provides an opportunity to reflect not only on the life of the great civil rights leader, but also on how far we’ve come — and how very far we still have to go. Below is an updated list of recommended books about Dr. King’s life […]
Review of Twelve Days in May: Freedom Ride 1961
December 6, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Twelve Days in May: Freedom Ride 1961 by Larry Dane Brimner Middle School Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills 110 pp. g 11/17 978-1-62979-586-7 $18.95 e-book ed. 978-1-62979-917-9 $9.99 Brimner (We Are One; Birmingham Sunday; Black & White) revisits the civil rights movement in this book about the 1961 Freedom Ride. Opening with a litany of landmark court […]
March on Washington anniversary reading
August 28, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Today marks the fifty-fourth anniversary of the March on Washington and Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech. To celebrate, we’ve pulled together inspiring fiction and nonfiction books about the march, the speech, the great man himself, and some of his fellow civil rights heroes. The following books were recommended by The […]
From The Guide: #goodtrouble
July 14, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Congressman and civil rights hero John Lewis, coauthor of the March graphic novel memoir trilogy, preached to his chickens as a child (see right); in the July/August 2017 issue, Lewis’s March coauthor Andrew Aydin describes their mission to keep “preaching” to a new generation. The following nonfiction picture books about the civil rights movement and […]
Five questions for Cynthia Levinson
March 7, 2017 by Leave a Comment
In 2012, Cynthia Levinson published We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March. In telling the larger story of the civil rights movement, she focused on the lives and work of four African American young people. One of those people was Audrey Faye Hendricks, who at the age of nine was arrested as part […]
Patricia Hruby Powell on Loving vs. Virginia
January 24, 2017 by Leave a Comment
In our January/February 2017 issue, our editors asked author Patricia Hruby Powell about approaching a landmark historical event through a novelistic lens in Loving vs. Virginia: A Documentary Novel of the Landmark Civil Rights Case. Read the full review. Horn Book Editors: Why did you choose to write the Lovings’ story as a “documentary novel”? […]
Review of Loving vs. Virginia: A Documentary Novel of the Landmark Civil Rights Case
January 24, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Loving vs. Virginia: A Documentary Novel of the Landmark Civil Rights Case by Patricia Hruby Powell; illus. by Shadra Strickland Middle School, High School Chronicle 260 pp. 2/17 978-1-4521-2590-9 $21.99 Organized chronologically, the alternating first-person narratives, written in free verse, begin in 1952 as Mildred Jeter enters sixth grade at the “colored” school; six years […]
