We’ve Got a Job

Title: We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March
Author: Cynthia Levinson
ISBN: 9781561456277
Pages: 176 pages
Publisher/Date: Peachtree Publishers, c2012
Awards: Finalist for The YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction (2013)

Though nonviolent, all of these confrontations were illegal. King reasoned that if enough protesters were arrested, they would fill the jails and overwhelm Connor’s ability to enforce segregation laws. […] Only a few hundred adults heard Bevel’s frenzied sermon that night, and just seventeen volunteered to go to jail. But kids got the message, especially when the preacher who followed Bevel proclaimed, “Some of these students say they have got to go to school, but they will get more education in five days in the City Jail than they will get in five months in a segregated school.” (48, 59)

Segregation in the 1960s was a violent time of upheaval. Most of us have heard the most familiar stories of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. But very few people may realize the effect that children and teens had in moving segregation efforts forward. During the entire month of April, 1963, the first in an effort to fill the jails and bring attention to the cause, only 123 people were arrested. But then a rallying cry and concentrated effort was made to enlist teenagers to a cause that would directly affect them. “Between Thursday, May 2, and Monday, May 6, almost 2,500 young people had been arrested.” (114) The treatment of these individuals, some as young as nine-years old, who flooded the streets brought national attention to events in the south. Ultimately, four children died in a church bombing that was the culmination of tensions between the black and white populations.

Cynthia Levinson spent four years tracking down and interviewing these participants and researching how history played out almost 50 years ago. Including a map, a timeline, an index, pictures of those interviewed and an assortment of notes, this book is an amazing glimpse into a time that changed America. Levinson does a thorough job of bringing to life the actions of the teenagers but also those of the adults involved. Readers finish the book with a solid understanding of how divided not only the community was on the issue of segregation, but also how disorganized the leadership was in achieving their goals. The government endorsed and encouraged the police’s prejudices against these protesters and it is hard to come to terms with their behavior based on today’s laws prohibiting such actions. At one point, government officials notified the Ku Klux Klan that they would be given 15 minutes to confront Freedom Riders, and the perpetrators who were caught after those violent fifteen minutes were given a minimal sentence.

Pair this book with The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine, which is set a few years earlier or The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon and One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia, which are both set a few years later. Especially in this unsteady time when unrest is reigning and emotions are high with so many political issues, including gay rights, immigration, and gun control, teens might take notes about nonviolent actions that they can use to affect change in today’s society.

This post is in honor of Nonfiction Mondays. For the entire round-up of all the bloggers who participated, check out Anastasia Suen’s blog.

This book in particular was read as I participate in YALSA’s 2013 Hub Reading Challenge which challenges readers to finish 25 books by June 22nd from a list of 83 titles that were recognized and published over the last year.

The Lions of Little Rock

Title: The Lions of Little Rock
Author: Kristin Levine
Narrator: Julia Whelan
ISBN: 9780399256448 (hardcover), 9780307968807 (audiobook)
Pages: 298 pages
Discs/CDs: 7 CDs, 8 hours and 23 minutes
Publisher/Date: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, an Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., c2012. (audiobook by Listening Library, an imprint of Random House Audio Publishing Group)
Publication Date: January 5, 2012

“So what did Miss Taylor say to you?” JT asked.
I shook my head.
“She said Liz isn’t coming back to West Side,” reported Nora, peering over the top of her glasses. “I was standing by the door and heard her. She said Liz is real sick. But I don’t think that’s true, because Liz was in school last Friday and she was fine.”
JT thought for a moment. “My cousin got the stomach flu last week. That can come on real sudden.”
“Yes, but that only lasts a few days,” said Nora.
“Liz isn’t coming back because she’s a Negro,” said Sally.
We all turned to look at her. (62)

Before meeting Liz, twelve-year-old Marlee didn’t have a lot of friends because she didn’t talk to anyone except for her family or her old friend Sally. But her family starts talking less and less as tensions are running high in Marlee’s household, with her parents on different sides of the debate regarding integrating the Little Rock schools. Liz reminded her so much of her older sister that she just felt comfortable talking to her, and Liz started encouraging her to speak up more at school. Then Liz vanishes from school, and the rumor mill is swirling that Liz was actually a light-skinned African-American, sneaking into school and passing for a white girl in order to get a better education. With tempers flaring in this city and acts of violence threatening, Marlee realizes she must pick a side and speak up if she’s going to prevent disaster from striking her or Liz.

This book reads like a younger version of Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. It brings the issue of integration and segregation to a level that kids understand, and sheds light on a period of time that even Levine recognizes in her author’s note is not talked about. “When I was in elementary school, my own education about the civil rights era was sketchy at best, but even I learned about the Little Rock Nine. [...] On the other hand, I had never heard of schools being closed to prevent integration, even though I later learned it had happened in my very own state of Virginia as well.” (292-293) I’ve mentioned several times that I enjoy “based-on-a-true story” type books, which I think is why I enjoy historical fiction so much when it’s set around little known events. It’s a fun way for me to learn about history and serves as a launching point to discover more, and I think other readers would agree.

Levine stays true to the era with language, which I appreciate when an author doesn’t cheapen the story by not using culturally significant words, like “Negro” and the not so nice term for African-Americans. I realize my not using it might look contradictory to some readers, but I don’t need to use the word to lend historical accuracy to a story, which is how Levine uses it. I absolutely love the front of the hardcover, featuring the black and white birds, both of which play a role in the story. While I know there’s lots of talk out there about white-washing covers and not portraying actual photographs of minorities on covers, I think the cover implies the tone of the story that can be found on its pages. The paperback version does have a photograph looking cover (I haven’t seen it in person, and it’s hard to tell by this graphic), but I think it makes the book look intended for younger audiences, which I don’t think would be right. Marlee is a seventh grader in the story, and things do get somewhat violent towards the end, so I would whole heartedly recommend it for middle schoolers but would probably hesitate to go younger. However, I do know some people who would argue that there was no audience filter on the events as they were happening, so why should we filter what they read since they would have experienced it first hand if they had been there. Obviously it’s your call as to who you recommend this book.

All the characters in the book are multi-faceted and very accurately portrayed. The time they are growing up in and the issues they are facing are not simple, and it’s refreshing to see so many characters realistically grappling with their lives. Marlee’s evolution is slow but steady, and we see enough glimpses of her during the school year to witness her thought-process and how major events influence her decision-making. Liz is bold and intelligent, and it’s no wonder that Marlee is pulled towards this new girl packing so much personality and self-assurance. Although told time and again that it would be dangerous to remain friends, just like typical teens they don’t recognize that danger and refuse to heed warnings until it’s almost too late. I want to also recognize the parents of both girls in this novel who work jobs and are out of the house but are far from absent or removed from the situation. Their thoughts and feelings grow, evolve, and change as the situation changes and the school closings continue to stretch on indefinitely with no answer in sight. They discipline their daughters but also support them, worry over their safety, and try their best to be involved and encourage what’s best in their children’s lives.

I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention Julie Whelan’s narration, which is spot-on. It probably helps that the book is told from Marlee’s perspective, which limits the rare male voices to a meager half-dozen at most. Readers get swept away by the story and don’t notice the time passing until you have to change discs. I waited a long time to read this, but you shouldn’t. Put this on every recommended book list you can, whether it is a list of historical fiction, African-American fiction, amazing audiobooks or simply friendship or school stories. It’s a heartfelt, memorable, and eye-opening account of friendship in tough circumstances during a period of time that strongly affected the people who lived through it. The story will stay with you for some time after you’re done reading it, making it a strong contender for reading group discussion.

Chess Rumble

Title: Chess Rumble
Author: G. Neri
Illustrator: Jesse Joshua Watson
ISBN: 9781584302797
Pages: 64 pages
Publisher/Date: Lee & Low Books Inc., c2007.

My Daddy
used to play chess
to calm his nerves
after workin’ all day
in a room
with no windows.
I wanted to play him,
but he always say
I wasn’t ready.
“This is a man’s game,” he say.
“You a man?” (4)

Marcus is leading a hard life that just got harder. After his sister suddenly died, his father left him, his mother, and his twin siblings to fend for themselves. Taunted by a bully at school, Marcus is frustrated and feels like the world is out to get him. That’s when he gets shoved into the school’s chess program by his principal, a woman who sees him going down the wrong road and wants to help him stay out of trouble. But while his dad used to play, Marcus is not about to become a chess chump just because some guy’s talking about endgame and strategy.

It’s hard to put into words what I like about this book. I’m a fan of chess, so maybe that adds to my appreciation. I like the idea of using chess to teach kids, and by the front jacket text, it sounds like people are actually doing that, since Neri was “inspired by inner-city school chess enrichment programs.” I loved the dialogue too. Marcus comes across as very realistic, dropping letters and not speaking entirely grammatically correct, throwing down challenges to anyone who will listen. It’s not just the speech patterns, but also the behavior shown, and readers are able to relate to Marcus even if they’ve never been there themselves. CM, the Chess Man, is also realistic in his approach, as he waits for Marcus to come to him. While he might lay the lessons on thick, he doesn’t force the issue and he still approaches the problem in a way that Marcus understands.

This short debut book packs a powerful punch, and between this, Yummy and Ghetto Cowboy, Neri is making a name for himself for relatable, readable, urban fiction for boys.

Shadow

Title: Shadow
Author: Michael Morpurgo
ISBN: 9780312606596
Pages: 180 pages
Publisher/Date: Feiwel and Friends Book, an imprint of Macmillian, c2010.
Publication Date: Sept. 4, 2012 (US) (first published Jan. 1, 2010)

I saw then what they had seen, foreign soldiers, several of them, coming slowly toward us. The one in front had a detector–I’d seen them before in Bamiyan–and I knew what they were for. He was sweeping the road ahead of him for bombs. I think it was only then that I put two and two together, and realized what Shadow was doing. She had discovered a bomb. She was pointing to it. She was showing us. and I knew somehow that she was showing the soldiers too.
But they still couldn’t see her. She was hidden from them by a boulder at the side of the road. So I just ran. I never even thought about it. I just ran, toward the soldiers, toward Shadow, toward the bomb.(72-73)

When Aman was just a child living in Afghanistan, his father and grandmother were killed by the Taliban. Forced to flee the country with his mother in the hopes of meeting up with an uncle in England, Aman faced some insurmountable odds. Finally making it across the border with the aid of a unique dog he named Shadow, Aman leads a relatively comfortable life in England. After spending six years in England, Aman and his mother receive the shocking news that their asylum request has been denied and they need to return to Afghanistan. They are locked away, awaiting deportation. That’s when Aman’s friend Matt and Matt’s grandfather make a last-ditch effort to save this family from a separation that could kill them.

Allowing Aman to tell the story in a flashback format prevents the urgency and apprehension from building. We already know that he and his mother make it to England successfully because he is locked there awaiting deportation. By the time readers catch up to present day, there are few pages left to resolve the conflict, and it’s fairly obvious what’s going to happen and you’re really not surprised by the ending. While the ending is fairly serendipitous, it’s also realistic, as you generally hear about “Hail Mary passes” being caught by someone and being taken all the way by a network of people.

The characters are likeable enough, but even Aman comes across as somewhat one-dimensional, as the focus is on the journey and not the people. Readers can sympathize with his situation, but you don’t get emotionally involved like some other stories encourage. Matt and his grandfather are supplemental, even though they are the only ones relating “present” events. I think it would have increased urgency if we had seen Aman’s state first hand, like when he was detained in the deportation “camp”.

However, I can see teachers using this in lesson plans about ongoing wars overseas, immigration, refugees, and comparing detention centers of today to other times we’ve had something similar occur, such as during World War II with Hitler’s concentration camps and the Japanese internment camps here in the United States. With short chapters, many of which have a dangling if not a true cliff-hanger ending, it would make an interesting read-aloud during transition times or for several minutes each day. Being written by Michael Morpurgo helps too, especially with the recent release of the War Horse movie generating interest in his war based realistic fiction. He provides some background information about asylum-seeking families and military dogs in his acknowledgements and postscripts. I’m very interested in getting the two movies he sites, Phil Grabsky’s The Boy Who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan and In this World, directed by Michael Winterbottom, although I’m not finding either at any library locally at this time.

Dear Blue Sky

Title: Dear Blue Sky
Author: Mary Sullivan
ISBN: 9780399256844
Pages: 248 pages
Publisher/Date: Nancy Paulsen Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, Published by The Penguin Group, c2012.
Publication Date: August 2, 2012

“Everything seems so messed up”–I took a deep breath–”since Sef decided to leave.”
“Yeah, I know.” His eyes filled. He wiped underneath them with the back of his hand. “I miss that kid.”
I’d never seen him cry before. I didn’t want to. His heavy cheeks seemed to sag, and for the first time, I noticed little gray hairs near his temples.
“What are we going to do, Dad?”
“I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.” (156)

Cassie knows that her life is nothing compared to what her older brother Sef must be going through serving as a Marine overseas in Iraq. It’s hard to cope though when Sef was the glue that held her family together. Now her parents are fighting, her younger brother isn’t talking, and her older sister is withdrawing and spending all her time with her no good boyfriend. Add to that a best friend who’s dropped Cassie for something she wasn’t responsible for, and Cassie’s only way to find relief is to literally run until she can start breathing again, something that she enjoyed doing with Sef but now must do alone. When Cassie discovers the blog Blue Sky, written by an Iraqi girl about her age, Cassie realizes that her life is nothing compared to the horrors Blue Sky encounters in a war zone. Cassie’s opinions and feelings are put to the test during this year of emotional upheaval, and she wonders what she can do to help everyone, including herself, recover.

This is a powerful book that forces readers to rediscover themselves and rethink the world. Mary Sullivan does an amazing job of putting readers in Cassie’s position. There’s a lot of family problems and drama for one book, but Cassie holds herself together surprisingly well considering the circumstances. I guess that’s what I liked about her the most is how real she comes across. There are times where she is just thoroughly overwhelmed by everything going on in her life, but she gets the support she needs from family, teachers, and classmates and strives to make her life more normal. She knows her life is a little crazy, but she sticks with her family and defends against accusations from other people. I was especially proud of how she cares for her younger brother, who has Down Syndrome and is having trouble with one of the neighborhood kids. She really takes to heart her self-imposed responsibility of taking care of the family now that her brother is away.

There have been a few books that have come out about the war in Iraq, post-September 11th, and teens dealing with a family member involved in the military in some way. Sullivan though presents it from both perspectives with the help of Blue Sky, the Iraqi blogger that Cassie strikes up an e-mail conversation with. While I understand that with the changing nature of the internet it might have been difficult to include a resource guide, I really wish she had included some of the blogs she referenced in her acknowledgements. She writes that she is forever grateful “to all the Iraqi girl bloggers brave enough to write about how the world changed their lives” and I feel like this would have been the perfect opportunity to include some of the ones she read. After a quick google search, quite a few of the blogs are defunct, and the few that are still active only provide a few rare posts each year. A few that I found include Middle East Journals and Baghdad Burning with depressing descriptions of fleeing the country several years ago, after which is stops. You’re left wondering what happened.

Besides that one quibble, I think Sullivan did an excellent job. She provides a plausible explanation for Blue Sky’s passable English skills (her father teaches English and worked as an interpreter) and she provides a glimpse into a life that is literally on the other side of the world from what we are used to in America. I hope we will never have to live through the type of warfare/conflict that has become so common overseas. Sullivan shows how the public can support the troops serving, even if they are conflicted about the war. This is a thought provoking, discussion worthy book with an eye-catching cover.

Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass

Title: Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass: The Story Behind an American Friendship
Author: Russell Freedman
ISBN: 9780547385624
Pages: 119 pages
Publisher/Date: Clarion Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, c2012.

Douglass and Lincoln had never met, but they had some things in common. They had both risen from poverty and obscurity to international prominence. Both were self-educated. Lincoln, born dirt poor, had less than a year of formal schooling. Douglass, born a slave, wasn’t permitted to go to school. He taught himself to read and write in secret, hiding the few books he was able to get his hands on. And in fact, the two men had read and studied some of the same books.
Even so, in the year 1863 it required plenty of ‘nerve,’ as Douglass put it, for a black man to walk unannounced into the White House and request an audience with the president. [...]
He was determined to wait. (3)

Describing the relationship that Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass had as a friendship might be hard for us to believe, considering they only met each other three times. But since some friendships these days are formed solely through digital communication means like the phone and the Internet, it might not be so hard for people to accept this description as I might think. In this book, Russell Freedman returns to his roots. Having already written a Newbery Medal winning photobiography about Lincoln, I can only imagine the resources he has at his disposal to investigate the relationship between Lincoln and Douglass.

But really the book isn’t just about those three meetings. It covers Lincoln’s and Douglass’s lives before they met up to Lincoln’s assassination. The unique part about this book is it discusses the evolution of Lincoln’s thoughts about slavery. Most students only learn about the Emancipation Proclamation and that Lincoln was against slavery. Freedman’s book shows that Lincoln’s actions and beliefs were never that black and white (pardon the pun). Lincoln maintained during the early part of the war that his only goal was to restore the Union, and didn’t end up issuing the Emancipation Proclamation until over a year into the war. He appears to be a political strategist from the beginning, and he always hesitated before slowly enstating further liberties for African-Americans because of his fear of the public’s response. Douglass had so such fears, and actually fled the country twice to avoid the public backlash against him and his beliefs.

While I can see it being added to numerous African-American History Month reading lists, students will probably have to consult other sources in order to get a complete view of these two influential men and the circumstances that brought them together.

This post is in honor of Nonfiction Mondays. For the entire round-up of all the bloggers who participated, check out Jennifer Wharton over at Jean Little Library.

Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition

Title: Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition
Author: Karen Blumenthal
ISBN: 9781596434493
Pages: 154 pages
Publisher/Date: Roaring Book Press, c2011.

Sometime after 10 a.m. on this shivery-cold and windy Chicago morning, seven men gathered in a nondescript garage warehouse on Clark Street.
Most of them were wearing hats and coats against the chill of the nearly empty warehouse as they waited, maybe for a big shipment of smuggled whiskey, maybe for a special meeting. These were no Boy Scouts. All had ties to a criminal gang run by George “Bugs” Moran […]. Most of them had done some jail time. […]
On the snow-dusted street outside, a black Cadillac with a police gong, siren, and gun rack—the type usually driven by police detectives—pulled up to the curb. Four or five men emerged, two dressed like police officers, and went into the warehouse. Seeing the “officers” and apparently thinking local cops were conducting a routine alcohol raid, the seven men inside lined up against the back wall and put their hands in the air.
They were still in that vulnerable position when two machine guns started firing. (1-2)

So begins Karen Blumenthal’s book about the Prohibition movement. Tracing back forty-five years to the very beginnings of the push against alcohol, Blumenthal creates a thorough account of how the 18th Amendment was added to the Constitution. After its enactment in 1919, the nation spent over a decade fighting against people who continued to traffic and sell what had become an illegal substance. With no clear way or agency willing to enforce the new law, a growing industry evolved in distributing alcohol. As public and political opinion shifted sides, the push began to repeal the law that was meant to save the nation from lawlessness.

I’d heard rave reviews of this book from multiple journals, and the sub-title gives the impression of a story of corruption that would rival the Sopranos or the Godfather. While Blumenthal does an admirable job presenting the history of the amendment and stays relatively neutral (there are some slips), it’s not the gang bang, violence filled account that you expect by the title. Besides the opening account of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (which is mentioned again later on) and some actions by Al Capone that are added almost as asides, less than 25% of the book covers the era the amendment was in affect, much less the deadly aspects of that decade.

Mostly detailing the campaigns to first invoke and then revoke the amendment, it also brings to light the audacity of the public to flaunt the system, as Blumenthal writes:

In grocery and department stores, packages of dehydrated grapes were sold with labels that read something like this: “WARNING! If the contents of this package are added to 5 gallons of water, 5 lbs. of sugar, and 1 cake of yeast, the result will be an intoxicating beverage which is illegal in the United States.” A brick of grape concentrate, customers were told, shouldn’t be put in a jug, corked, and set in a dark place for three weeks or shaken once a day because—hint, hint—it would turn into wine. (82)

It’s those little “winks” that make me question or objectivity towards the subject, but as I said she presented quite a bit more background information than most books on the subject contain.

Abundant black and white pictures give readers a window into life during the late 1800s and early 1900s. An extremely thorough bibliography and source notes also follow the text, however most of the books appear quite old based on their copyright dates, and I wonder how easily accessible they are to readers looking for more information. Since the book is being recommended for teenage audiences, I also would have appreciated some sort of indication as to which sources were appropriate for that age group. The inclusion of a timeline in the accompanying material would have also been nice.

Overall it appears to be a well researched book about Prohibition, good for projects but probably not so appealing to the merely curious.

Small as an Elephant

Title: Small as an Elephant
Author: Jennifer Richard Jacobson
ISBN: 9780763641559
Pages: 275 pages
Publisher: Candlewick Press, c2011.

“It’s gotta be lunchtime, he thought, kicking off his sleeping bag. Why hadn’t she woken him up? He raced the tent zipper around its track and scrambled out into fresher air.
Dang!
The rental car was gone! He stood there, rooted, as if his eyes just had to adjust to the light, had to let forms take shape, and the car would be there, right where she’d left it. But the car was really gone. So was the little tent his mother had pitched on the gravelly ground next to his. [...]
All that was left on the site was Jack and his Hubba [tent].” (2-3)

Eleven-year-old Jack Martel wakes up during a camping trip with his mother over Labor Day weekend to discover his mother gone. While any other kid would get help from someone, Jack’s mother has had problems before, and Jack is afraid he’ll be taken away permanently from his mom if he reports her disappearance. With a dead cell phone and no idea how to contact her, Jack heads off for the one place he’s hoping his mom will think to look for him. But striking out across Maine with no money or food is going to draw some attention, and Jack must avoid the cops if he’s going to find his mom before they do.

The author’s note on the back jacket talks about how Jennifer Richard Jacobson actually traced Jack’s route, since every place he visits actually exists. I visited Arcadia National Park several years ago, and I wish I’d had this book with me at the time. It makes me want to go back and also trace Jack’s route, from the bed and breakfast to the Jesup Memorial Library, the sports store where he spends a night, and the bookstore with the huge vault. Jack’s survival instincts are impressive, and I appreciated how realistic his actions were. By the end, he’s doing whatever he can to survive and not get caught, and he’s stressed and confused and scared. There are tears and rage and defeat, all the emotions that readers feel along with him in this touching story.

Jacobson includes quotes about the elephant from a multitude of sources, ranging from Abrahama Lincoln and Henry David Thoreau to Kate DiCamillo. There are also facts about the elephant that bring alive Jack’s fascination with this animal. Readers learn that elephants have refused to eat posioned food, have secretly practiced their tricks at night, and even aid in the germination of seeds. Who wouldn’t develop a foundness for these creatures after seeing them in this new light?

The ending strikes the perfect chord between hope and bittersweetness, and would be a great selection for book discussion groups.

Ghetto Cowboy

Title: Ghetto Cowboy
Author: G. Neri
Illustrator: Jesse Joshua Watson
ISBN: 9780763649227
Pages: 218 pages
Publisher/Date: Candlewick Press, c2011.
Publication Date: August 9, 2011

The front door’s open. I walk in and the first thing I smell is . . . horses? I ain’t never smelled a horse before, never even saw one up close before a few minutes ago. But if a horse got a smell, I think this is it, ’cause that’s all that’s in here: horse stuff. A coupla old saddles, blankets, brushes, work boots, horse things like you see on TV. Instead of furniture, there’s even them square things of hay to sit on.
This ain’t no house–it’s a barn.
To top it off, there a big ol’ hole from floor to ceiling knocked into the side of the living room, leading into the place next door, like he just wanted to epand his crib and took over the abandoned one next to his.
I peek inside the hole, but its dark ’cause all the windows is boarded up. But man, it really smells like animal in there. Suddenly, something big moves in the dark, and I jump back.
“That’s Lightning,” says Harper.
My eyes adjust to a pair of dark eyes staring back at me.
It’s a horse. He got a horse in the house.
No wonder Mom left him. (22-23)

Fed up with Cole’s behavior, skipping school and getting into trouble, his mother drives him through the night to Philadelphia, to the house of the father he’s never met. Cole isn’t sure which parent is crazier, his mother for doing this to him or his father for claiming to be a cowboy and caring for horses out of a rundown stable in an abandoned lot. But Cole realizes that his father isn’t the only crazy one, as he quickly meets the rest of the black cowboys trying to maintain country lifestyles in the city. Will the fight for the horses finally bring Cole and his father together, or just drive them farther apart?

I’m always up for a good “based on a true story” book, and this is no different. G. Neri does a great job with the dialogue and urban dialect without going overboard with language that would force it into the teen area. I could still see teens enjoying this book, especially the reluctant/struggling/hi-lo readers. The conversations and flow is typical of everyday speech patterns, which makes it a very fast and easy read. But the relationships are what make it compelling, as we see that not everything is black and white. Cole’s father probably says it best when explaining that the city has turned some people against them, while other city people are glad that the horses provide an alternative activity for youth besides gangs. Cole realizes the complexity of the issue when he finds out that Cole’s father is even friends with a cop who used to stable a horse in the city.

This seems to be an ongoing issue, with no cut and dry answers. Neri respects that struggle by not giving his own story a cut and dry happy ending. Even with the epilogue, the characters still have their own battles to fight, but it in no way makes the ending any less satisfying. This is a book ready-made for discussion, with Mr. Neri providing websites, videos, and even a discussion packet on his own website, http://gregneri.com/cowboy.html that teachers and librarians should really check out. Looking through some of the news stories, you can tell that the author did his research and based some of the events in the book on actual events in the Federation of Black Cowboys history and experience. Although I read the physical book, and the illustrations are phenomenal, the audiobook did receive an Odyssey Honor Award and an AudioFile Earphones Award, so I guess that format would be just as impressive.

Heart and Soul

Title: Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans
Author/Illustrator: Kadir Nelson
ISBN: 9780061730740
Pages: 108 pages
Publisher/Date: Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, c2011.
Awards: Won Coretta Scot King Author Award, 2012
Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor, 2012

Most folks my age and complexion don’t speak much about the past. Sometimes it’s just too hard to talk about–nothing we like to share with you young folk. No parent wants to tell a child that he was once a slave and made to do another man’s bidding. Or that she had to swallow her pride and take what she was given, even though she knew it wasn’t fair. Our story is chock-full of things like this. Things that might make you cringe, or feel angry. But there are also parts that will make you proud, or even laugh a little. You gotta take the good with the bad, I guess. You have to know where you come from so you can move forward.” (7)

Just as the subtitle says, this is the story of America and African Americans. Narrated by a family matriarch, she takes readers back in time to her grandfather’s time, when he was taken on a slave ship to serve on a plantation, and proceeds to tell her family’s story all the way to present day. Covering the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, both World Wars and the Great Depression, she concludes with the Civil Rights marches and an epilogue that discusses the accomplishments that movement brought.

Kadir Nelson’s work is a force to be reckoned with. He has been recognized by the Coretta Scott King Book Award Committee a total of five times, but I think this surpasses everything I’ve seen of his. The book is formatted and designed to mimic a photo album, with the cover artwork framed out with scrollwork. The double page spreads primarily consist of one full-page picture and a page of corresponding text. Generous white space, short chapters, and the conversational tone make the book a very quick read, and readers will feel like their listening to their own grandmother telling the story of her youth.

You’ll really need to go through it a second time to truly appreciate the detailed artwork, ranging from unoccupied landscapes to crowded scenes. Nelson even includes imitations of some iconic portraits like Martin Luther King’s Jr. address on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Interspersed throughout the book are a handful of double page illustrations that really bring readers to a halt. The book could be called a pictorial history book or narrative nonfiction, but in any case it’s a stunning portrayal of history.

This post is in honor of Nonfiction Mondays. For the entire round-up of all the bloggers who participated, check out publishers Capstone over at Capstone Connect.