Couverture / Jaquette

From NYT bestselling author Tracey Baptiste comes a singular picture book that is both a biography about Claudette Colvin, the teen whose activism launched the Montgomery bus boycott, and a celebration of collective action.

When fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin boarded a segregated bus on March 2, 1955, she had no idea she was about to make history. At school she was learning about abolitionists like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, which helped inspire her decision to refuse to give up her seat to a white woman, which led to her arrest, which began a crucial chain of events: Rosa Park's sit-in nine months later, the organization of the Montgomery bus boycott by activists like Professor Jo Ann Robinson and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the Supreme Court decision that Alabama's bus segregation was unconstitutional-a major triumph for the civil rights movement.

Because of Claudette's brave stand against injustice, history was transformed. Now it's time for young readers to learn about this living legend, her pivotal role in the civil rights movement, and the power of one person reaching out to another in the fight for change.

Story Locale: Montgomery, AL, 1955-6

Note biographique

Tracey Baptiste; illustrated by Tonya Engel

Fonctionnalité

Power of the collective: Demonstrates how it takes a coalition of people making "good trouble," (a phrase coined by civil rights leader, Congressman John Lewis) to bring about lasting change.



Early introduction to activism: Children shouldn't have to wait until middle school to learn about this teen change maker.

Civil rights education: Shows young readers that the civil rights movement didn't just begin or end with Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Living legend: In researching this book, the author has spoken with Ms. Colvin, who is now eighty-one years old; the importance of honoring revolutionaries while they're still alive cannot be overstated.

Détails