Synopses & Reviews
and#160; Before the Little Rock Nine, before Rosa Parks, before Martin Luther King Jr. and his March on Washington, there was Barbara Rose Johns, a teenager who used nonviolent civil disobedience to draw attention to her cause. In 1951, witnessing the unfair conditions in her racially segregated high school, Barbara Johns led a walkoutand#151;the first public protest of its kind demanding racial equality in the U.S.and#151;jumpstarting the American civil rights movement. Ridiculed by the white superintendent and school board, local newspapers, and others, and even after a cross was burned on the school grounds, Barbara and her classmates held firm and did not give up. Her schooland#8217;s case went all the way to the Supreme Court and helped end segregation as part of
Brown v. Board of Education.
Barbara Johns grew up to become a librarian in the Philadelphia school system. The Girl from the Tar Paper School mixes biography with social history and is illustrated with family photos, images of the school and town, and archival documents from classmates and local and national news media. The book includes a civil rights timeline, bibliography, and index.
Praise for The Girl from the Tar Paper School
"An important glimpse into the early civil rights movement."
and#151;Kirkus Reviews
"Based largely on interviews, memoirs, and other primary source material, and liberally illustrated with photographs, this well-researched slice of civil rights history will reward readers who relish true stories of unsung heroes."
and#151;The Bulletin of The Center for Childrenand#8217;s Books
Review
"Paired very effectively with Giovanni's passionate, direct words, Collier's large watercolor-and-collage illustrations depict Parks as an inspiring force that radiates golden light." -- Booklist, Starred Review "Purposeful in its telling, this is a handsome and thought-provoking introduction to these watershed acts of civil disobedience." -- School Library Journal "Giovanni and Collier offer a moving interpretation of Rosa Park's momentous refusal to give up her bus seat. The author brings her heroine very much to life...a fresh take on a remarkable historic event." -- Publishers Weekly "An essential volume for classrooms and libraries." -- Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Paired very effectively with Giovanni's passionate, direct words, Collier's large watercolor-and-collage illustrations depict Parks as an inspiring force that radiates golden light." -- Booklist, Starred Review "Purposeful in its telling, this is a handsome and thought-provoking introduction to these watershed acts of civil disobedience." -- School Library Journal "Giovanni and Collier offer a moving interpretation of Rosa Park's momentous refusal to give up her bus seat. The author brings her heroine very much to life...a fresh take on a remarkable historic event." -- Publishers Weekly "An essential volume for classrooms and libraries." -- Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
Fifty years after her refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus, Mrs. Rosa Parks is still one of the most important figures in the American civil rights movement. This tribute to Mrs. Parks is a celebration of her courageous action and the events that followed. Award-winning poet, writer, and activist Nikki Giovannis evocative text combines with Bryan Colliers striking cut-paper images to retell the story of this historic event from a wholly unique and original perspective.
Synopsis
She had not sought this moment but she was ready for it. When the policeman bent down to ask “Auntie, are you going to move?” all the strength of all the people through all those many years joined in her. She said, “No.”
An inspiring account of an event that shaped American history
Fifty years after her refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus, Mrs. Rosa Parks is still one of the most important figures in the American civil rights movement. This picture- book tribute to Mrs. Parks is a celebration of her courageous action and the events that followed.
Award-winning poet, writer, and activist Nikki Giovannis evocative text combines with Bryan Colliers striking cut-paper images to retell the story of this historic event from a wholly unique and original perspective.
Synopsis
Winner of the Caldecott Honor Medal and the Coretta Scott King Medal, this picture book tribute to Rosa Parks celebrates the 50th anniversary of her refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus.
Synopsis
Fifty years after her refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus, Mrs. Rosa Parks is still one of the most important figures in the American civil rights movement. This tribute to Mrs. Parks is a celebration of her courageous action and the events that followed. Award-winning poet, writer, and activist Nikki Giovannis evocative text combines with Bryan Colliers striking cut-paper images to retell the story of this historic event from a wholly unique and original perspective.
Synopsis
She had not sought this moment but she was ready for it. When the policeman bent down to ask “Auntie, are you going to move?” all the strength of all the people through all those many years joined in her. She said, “No.”
An inspiring account of an event that shaped American history
Fifty years after her refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus, Mrs. Rosa Parks is still one of the most important figures in the American civil rights movement. This picture- book tribute to Mrs. Parks is a celebration of her courageous action and the events that followed.
Award-winning poet, writer, and activist Nikki Giovannis evocative text combines with Bryan Colliers striking cut-paper images to retell the story of this historic event from a wholly unique and original perspective.
Rosa is a 2006 Caldecott Honor Book and the winner of the 2006 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award.
Synopsis
A story of little ballerinas with big dreams.
Little ballerinas have big dreams. Dreams of pirouettes and grande jetes, dreams of attending the best ballet schools and of dancing starring roles on stage. But in Harlem in the 1950s, dreams dont always come truethey take a lot of work and a lot of hope. And sometimes hope is hard to come by.
But the first African-American prima ballerina, Janet Collins, did make her dreams come true. And those dreams inspired ballerinas everywhere, showing them that the color of their skin couldnt stop them from becoming a star.
In a lyrical tale as beautiful as a dance en pointe, Kristy Dempsey and Floyd Cooper tell the story of one little ballerina who was inspired by Janet Collins to make her own dreams come true.
About the Author
Nikki Giovanni has written many books of poetry for children and adults. She is the author of
Lincoln and Douglass,
The Genie in the Jar, and
Ego-tripping and Other Poems for Young People.
Rosa is a Caldecott Honor book. Giovanni calls herself, "a Black American, a daughter, a mother, a professor of English." She was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and grew up in Lincoln Heights, an all-black suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. She studied at Fisk University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University. She published her first book of poetry,
Black Feeling Black Talk, in 1968, and since then has become one of Americas most widely read poets. Oprah Winfrey named her as one of her twenty-five “Living Legends.” Her autobiography
Gemini was a finalist for the National Book Award, and several of her books have received NAACP Image Awards. She has received some twenty-five honorary degrees, been named Woman of the Year by
Mademoiselle Magazine,
The Ladies Home Journal and
Ebony, was the first recipient of the Rosa L. Parks Woman of Courage Award, and has been awarded the Langston Hughes Medal for poetry. Nikki Giovanni lives in Christiansburg, Virginia, where she is a professor of English at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
Bryan Collier is the author and illustrator of Uptown, winner of the Coretta Scott King Award and the Ezra Jack Keats Book Award. He is also the illustrator of Martin's Big Words, which was a Caldecott Honor Book. The Chicago Sun-Times has called Colliers art “breathtakingly beautiful.” Mr. Collier lives with his family in Upstate New York.