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Recommended for ages 6-12.



I just came across at my local library a moving new picture book that combines a little-known piece of labor history and the civil rights movement with a tender portrait of a grandfather’s close relationship with his grandson.  Author Margaret Mason explains in an author’s note that during the 1950s and early 1960s, African American workers at Wonder Bread and other bakery factories were allowed to sweep the floors, load the trucks, and fix the machines—but they were not allowed to work as bread dough mixers or bread dough handlers, “because the bosses said/white people would not want to eat bread/touched by these hands.”  Inspired by the stories she heard from an old friend who was a Bakers Union organizer, she wrote this inspiring tale of overcoming discrimination.

Joseph’s grandpa’s hands can still teach a young fellow how to tie his shoes, play the piano, do card tricks, or hit a line drive.  But because they weren’t allowed to touch bread dough in the factory, “these hands joined with other hands,” writing petitions and demonstrating until their proud hands could finally touch the bread dough.  And Joseph, too, can do lots of things with his hands, now, all by himself, including baking “a fine loaf of bread.”  A refrain of “yes, you can” unites the free verse poetry of Mason’s text.  The incomparable illustrator Floyd Cooper, 3 Comments on Book Review: These Hands, by Margaret H. Mason (Houghton Mifflin, 2010), last added: 8/4/2011

Recommended for ages 10 and up.


Curious about what happened to the slaves who ran away to seek freedom in Canada?  Unfortunately, not everything went smoothly for all the runaways who made it to Canada.  In this historical fiction novel for young people, author Ann Towell spins a tale based on a real race riot that took place in 1863.

The story is narrated by Titus, a 12-year old boy who stows away in his older brother's wagon to the Canadian oil fields in Oil Springs, Ontario, around the time of the Civil War.  Titus has been living with his Aunt Sadie and her husband, and he's had just about enough of his aunt's nagging.  When his brother Lemuel plans to leave to go to his Uncle Amos' house at the oil fields, Titus figures it's time for him to have some adventures rather than go to school.  On the road to the oil fields, they meet up with a stranger, John, whom Titus figures is bad news.  "There didn't seem much about him that was honest and true," Titus tells the reader.

With the cover image of a young black boy, I was convinced at first that the narrator, Titus, was black himself.  It took me quite a few pages to figure out that the character we see on the cover is in fact not the narrator, Titus, but rather Moses, a young black boy that Titus befriends when he arrives at Oil Springs.  Moses is the first Negro Titus has ever seen, and he describes his face as a "dark color like the beautiful walnut sideboard Aunt Sadie had in the dining room."  Moses and Titus even start a business together, giving tours of the oil fields to curious folk from the cities.

But the former slaves didn't leave all their troubles behind--some of the oilmen are trying to wreak havoc about the black people working on the oil wells, stirring up trouble by telling people that the blacks are taking jobs away from them by working for less pay.  When their tactics don't work, they stoop even lower to rile up the crowds and drive the blacks out of town.  Titus winds up an eyewitness to the violence.  Can Titus save his friend Moses and his family and help bring the troublemakers to justice?

We learn so little in school about our neighbors to the north that I am always glad to discover a historical novel that explores Canadian history, particularly as it intersects with our own past.  Clearly racism didn't end at the Canadian border, despite the lack of a history of slavery in Canada.  This novel offers an interesting perspective on the Civil War period from the other side of the border, and it's also a moving coming-of-age story about a young man who's forced to confront his fears in order to pursue what's right. 


Other blog reviews include:  Ms. Yingling Reads,
Quill and Quire, Good Books and Good Wine, Bookish Blather, The Magic Lasso, Journey of a Bookseller. 

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Recommended for ages 7-10

This new biography of jazz great Louis Armstrong tells the story of his childhood from the perspective of his first trumpet, bought from a run-down pawn shop in New Orleans.  This unusual narrator provides a distinctly different point of view in this engaging biography for young children.

Author Weinstein describes Armstrong's very poor childhood in the toughest neighborhood in New Orleans (known as The Battlefield), but notes that Louis never complained; "he said [complaints] hurt his ears as much as a horn's sour notes."  Despite his poverty, Louis had the ability to look on the bright side of life.  From an early age, Louis was known for his huge smile, which everyone said was as wide as an open satchel.  So they called him "Satchelmouth," eventually shortened to Satchmo.
We see Louis introduced to jazz, so fascinated by the pulsing rhythms that he would sneak into clubs and hide under tables to listen to the music.  Although it was clear from an early age that Armstrong had a great gift for music, with his family's poverty, there was no money for an instrument or music lessons.  But when he was about seven, he went to work in the junk business of the Karnofskys, a Russian Jewish family who lived on the edge of the black neighborhood.  The Karnofskys fed Louis, gave him work, and in honor of their kindness, he wore a Star of David necklace his entire life.   According to this book, the Karnofskys loaned Louis money to buy his first cornet, our narrator, the five dollar horn in the pawn shop.

With the need to make money, there was little time for Louis to go to school, and he dropped out in the 5th grade to take up singing with a quartet of boys on a street corner. But when he was 12 years old, Louis was arrested for firing a gun in the air on New Year's Eve, and sent to the Colored Waif's Home for Boys, out in the countryside, a combination orphanage and reform school.  There he had the opportunity to study music and even play in a band, and had clean clothes and three meals a day.  He spent a year and a half there, and when he left, he worked shoveling coal during the day and singing in a quartet and playing cornet after that.  Before long he was discovered and earning a dollar a night to play in a band with King Oliver, who took Armstrong with him later to Chicago.

This book ends as Armstrong is becoming successful and famous, and doesn't deal at all with the later part of his life.  However, an Afterword describes how he was considered the greatest cornet player in the world, and later the greatest trumpet player.  The author describes what made Armstrong special, including his skill at improvisation and his scat singing.  She also points out that despite his lack of formal schooling, Armstrong enjoyed writing and kept journals as well as writing two autobiographies.  The book also includes a glossary of jazz terms and jazz slang, as well as a brief bibliography.

This is an entertaining and interesting book for young readers, although it doesn't strive to give a complete picture of his life, concentrating instead on his colorful childhood in New Orleans.  It also doesn't delve into the more controversial parts of Armstrong's biography, such as his reputation among some in the black community as an "Uncle Tom," or his initial lack of public support for the civil rights movement.

For more on Armstrong, check out the website for his home in New York, now a museum, which offers a comp

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Recommended for ages 8 through adult.


This inspiring picture book for all ages uses the Beatitudes--the famous lines that begin Jesus' Sermon on the Mount--as the background for a trip through African-American history, particularly as faith has influenced the quest for freedom and equal rights through different eras.  Award-winning author Carole Boston Weatherford uses free verse text to describe God's omnipresent role throughout the long struggle, beginning with the voyage on slave ships to America and ending with Barack Obama taking the presidential oath.

Here's an example of her moving verse:

I was with the U.S. Colored Troops
who fought to end slavery during the Civil War.
I beat the drum for freedom.

I was with Booker T. Washington
and Mary McLeod Bethune, who built colleges
and lit the way for young minds.
I was the lamp.

Carole Boston Weatherford's text is enhanced by stirring watercolor and pastel illustrations by Tim Ladwig, who is both an artist and minister and has illustrated other picture books with biblical texts.  In The Beatitudes, he depicts both famous individuals and ordinary African-Americans with the same dignity, and many of the illustrations are infused with a beautiful golden light.   At the conclusion of the book are brief biographical profiles of the famous African-Americans mentioned in the text, including Ruby Bridges, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Emmett Till, Marian Anderson, Harriet Tubman, and Barack Obama.
This is a beautiful volume for any home or public library, and can be enjoyed by readers of any race or religious faith.

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Recommended for ages 8-12.


This stunning picture book for older readers is a great choice to read aloud in class for African-American history month.  Based on the true story of a young slave, Benjamin Holmes, who, despite the odds and the fact that it was against the law, had learned to read.  Ben had learned the alphabet from his father, and when Ben was apprenticed by his master to a tailor in Charleston, he discovers plenty of secret ways to figure out words, whether in the ledger, on boxes in the shop, or in store windows in Charleston.  He even picks up copies of discarded newspapers to teach himself, learning to read about abolition and freedom.  And, encouraged by his mother on a rare trip home to the plantation, Ben teaches himself to write as well.

Although he hid his reading and writing from the whites, it was harder to keep his skills secret from the other slaves.  When war breaks out, Ben is sent to a slave prison, to stay there until sold, where he decides he'd just forget about reading..."it could only lead to trouble."

But one night, the slaves bribe a guard for a copy of the Charleston newspaper, and beg Ben to read it to them.  As Ben begins to read, we read along with him the famous words of Lincoln's Emancipation Declaration:  "All persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free..."  The author ends the story with Ben peering at the golden light of daybreak through the slats of the shed...wondering what this new freedom would look like.

This book would not be nearly as effective without the handsome illustrations of illustrator Floyd Cooper, using his signature oil on board technique.  His illustrations have an old-fashioned quality that makes use of warm earth tones, reminding the viewer of sepia-toned photographs of the time period.  The two-page spread of Ben reading the Emancipation Declaration is particularly striking in its dramatic simplicity, as Ben is presented in a head and shoulders perspective, reading the newspaper, while the other slaves are seen only in shadow.

An Author's Note with brief biographical information about Benjamin Holmes follows, in which we learn that after the war he attended Fisk University, where he became a member of their Jubilee Singers, touring throughout America and Europe, as well as becoming a teacher.  Additional resources, both books and websites, are also listed.

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Carole Boston Weatherford is the vibrant author of some of the best children’s books  exploring African-American history.  I met Carole a year ago after she flew up from North Carolina to come visit our school library. As a snowstorm barreled in that day, we had to change our schedule at the last minute. Carole mastered the situation with grace and verve, adjusting each of her three sessions to relate perfectly to the age group. She recited poems to the youngest; she had children participating by chanting, jingling bells and tapping a triangle. They left the library joyous and inspired.

With the fourth and fifth-graders, she discussed Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins and presented a sensitive and nuanced look at Jim Crow as it still existed when she was a child in Baltimore. She showed a photograph of the park where she and her family were not allowed to go. The students were solemn and spellbound. Carole Boston Weatherford knows how to make history real to children.

One of my favorite read-alouds for Black History Month, is Freedom on the Menu (Dial, 2004), which works well with ages 6-10. Told from the point of view of eight-year-old Connie, the story takes readers to the Woolsworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, NC. Connie and her mother often stop there for a soda after shopping downtown. Connie would like to sit down and have a banana split instead, but can’t; only whites may sit at the counter.  “All over town signs told Mama and me where we could and couldn’t go,” Connie lamented. Lagarrigue’s somber, impressionistic paintings show the hateful Jim Crow signs that warp the community. Changes are in the air, though, as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. comes to town. Connie sees her older siblings become politically involved and join in the lunch counter sit-ins. As the protests spread through the South, laws change. Six months later, Connie gets to savor her banana split at the counter, and it tastes like so sweet — like freedom. The author’s note about the 1960 Greensboro sit-ins provides additional information that will help young people understand the Civil Rights movement. See Weatherford’s web site for lesson plans inspired by this exemplary picture book.

And don’t miss these treasures …

For older children:

The Beatitudes: From Slavery to Civil Rights. illus. by Tim Ladwig. Eerdmans, 2009. Ages 7-12. Anyone looking for a picture book to illustrate the role of faith in helping people survive and eventually overcome tragedy should take a look at this beautiful book. While the religious tone might be too heavy for some people, there is a place for a book that fosters faith in God and respect for all.

Birmingham, 1963. Wordsong, 2007.

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Recommended for ages 8-12.


In her first novel for middle grade readers, author Jerdine Nolen presents a fictional diary of a 12-year old slave in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1854, as she escapes to freedom in Canada through the help of the Underground Railroad.  Much like Scholastic's Dear America series, the story is told in diary entries that take place over the course of a year.

Eliza is not an ordinary slave; at a time when it was against the law for slaves to learn to read and write, she was taught by her mistress to do so.  But it is not her mistress but fellow house slave Abbey who gives Eliza the unused diary Mistress had thrown away, along with two lead pencils.  But she knows she must write in it in secret, far from the eyes of Sir, the plantation's cruel owner.  Eliza's mother has been sold away, leaving her with only her memories and a beloved story quilt to remember her by.  This quilt has twelve panels, each symbolizing a different story her mother loved to tell, including two blank squares, for Eliza to quilt her own stories on.  Eliza's own narrative is peppered with her mother's stories, some of which have African roots, others coming from the Bible.

Because she reads the newspaper to her nearly-blind Mistress, Eliza is more aware than most slaves of the unrest in the country over slavery, and learns through the paper about the underground railroad.  She wonders what that could be.  "Do they mean departure by an underground railroad train?  Is there a way they escaped on a train that runs under the ground?  I want to know how to find that train station.  I want to know how to get three tickets:  one for Abbey, one for Mama, one for me."

When Eliza is sent with her mistress to "Mary's Land," she meets Harriet Tubman, who one of the other slaves tells Eliza is the Moses of their people, coming back to show others the way to freedom.  Be ready in the spring, they tell her, when Miss Harriet will be back.  But when she finds out Sir is coming to take them back home, she knows she can't delay any longer; she must go north to freedom.

The diary chronicles Eliza's journey on the Underground Railroad, and how she used markers and the North Star to find her way from safe house to safe house.  Although the happy ending that awaits Eliza in Canada seems a bit forced, the book is likely to be popular with young readers looking for historical titles.  There is plenty of suspense as Eliza makes her way north, and the author does an excellent job capturing Eliza's voice and her everyday life as a slave before she runs away.

An author's note explains that the book started as a collection of her favorite stories and folktales, and she was subsequently inspired to add the voice of young Eliza, the storyteller.  She also mentions Canterbury Tales as a source of inspiration as well.

The book includes a bibliography of related books and websites.

Check out other blog reviews at Fuse #8, Tutu's Two Cents, Kirkus, and  1 Comments on African American History Month Book Review: Eliza's Freedom Road: An Underground Railroad Diary , by Jerdine Nolen (Simon & Schuster, 2011), last added: 2/8/2011