skip to main |
skip to sidebar
If you are a regular visitor to this blog, you will know that I am a huge sports fan. Some of my favorite books are biographies of famous sports legends, or collections of heroic sports stories (think Rick Reilly).
Today I thought I would honor the 40th anniversary of the nomination of Satchel Paige to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. On February 9, 1971, pitcher Leroy "Satchel" Paige became the first Negro League veteran to be nominated for the Baseball Hall of Fame. In August of that year, Paige, a pitching legend known for his fastball, showmanship and the longevity of his playing career, which spanned five decades, was inducted. Baseball legend Joe DiMaggio once called Paige "the best and fastest pitcher I've ever faced."
There are many Negro League players with incredible talent and the life stories to match. This graphic novel, "Satchel Paige: striking out Jim Crow," follows Paige from game to game as he travels through the segregated South. The powerful graphics and prose definitely do justice to this sports legend!
Continuing our spotlight on Black History Month, today's post is about the murder of Emmett Till. This landmark case is not often found in textbooks, but more and more books are being published. Two of the best are:
Title: Simeon's Story: an eyewitness account of the kidnapping of Emmett Till
Author: Wright
Genre: Non-fiction, Biography, Crimes
Pages: 176
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars!
I have read many books about the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old black boy from Chicago whose body was battered beyond recognition and dumped in the Tallahatchie River while visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, in 1955. Till's crime? He supposedly whistled at a white woman. This crime was often overlooked by the history books because Till was African American. Though his murderers were never brought to justice, the crime has received much attention in recent years.
This account of the tragedy is told by the boy's cousin, Simeon Wright, who was with Emmett on the fateful day and was sleeping in the same room when white men came to take him away in the middle of the night. Simeon's story is a page-turner and should be included in American History curriculums.
Though it looks like a picture book, A Wreath for Emmett Till by Marilyn Nelson is definitely intended for older readers. This book is a collection of 15 sonnets that tell the story surrounding the murder of Emmett. The "wreath" is the collection of poems, the last line of one of the sonnets becomes the first line of the next, and the final sonnet contains one line from each of the preceding 14 poems. Very moving, and a perfect companion book to Simeon's Story.
Today's entry is:
Title: Claudette Colvin: Twice toward justice
Author: Hoose
Genre: Biography
Pages: 160
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars!
This is a MUST READ book about an important young woman, that is unfortunately often neglected in the history books. On March 2, 1955, Claudette Colvin, a teenager fed up with the daily injustices of Jim Crow segregation, refused to give her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Instead of being celebrated as Rosa Parks would be nine months later, fifteen-year-old Claudette found herself shunned by her classmates and dismissed by community leaders. Undaunted, a year later she dared to challenge segregation again as a key plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle, the landmark case that struck down the segregation laws of Montgomery and swept away the legal underpinnings of the Jim Crow South.
Hoose has written a well-researched and engaging biography of Ms. Colvin, based in no small part on interviews with her. It won the 2009 National Book Award, was a Newbery Honor winner, a YALSA Excellence in Non-Fiction finalist, and a Sibert Medal Honor book...just to name the "big" ones. Definitely time well spent getting to know this amazing young woman!
blogger templates | Make Money Online
Posts
