Remember: The Journey to School Integration

Morrison, T. (2004). Remember: the journey to school integration. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Genre: Informational, Multicultural

Grades: Grades 2-5

Summary: In Remember, Pulitzer Prize winner Toni Morrison provides an insightful look into the lives of young people during the desegregation of schools in America. Actual photographs from that era are compiled into this striking book. Morrison supplements the photographs with a fictional account of what conversations between the students may have been like. More than anything, the photographs themselves tell the story more than any words could have. In addition, Morrison has included a timeline of key events in school desegregation and photo notes.

Reflection: Morrison, who experienced the school desegregation herself, has put together a book that flows chronologically from the beginnings of school desegregation to the end. The pictures suppport the events that occurred. She provides a brief introduction to allow young readers to have an idea of the situation the photographs portray. Structurally, the book is divided into three parts: before school desegregation, during school desegregetion, and continuing segregation.  After a brief description of events, photographs follow with a fictional account of possible conversations. There is actually a small amount of text for each picture with a lot of meaning in what the words are telling the reader. In most cases, the pictures express more than the words. 

Students could research an event on the timeline and report on it to the class, write an interview on school desegregation, or write a story to describe a photograph. Students can discuss how the book made them feel and what they learned about segregation. This book is very powerful and will give students a lot to think about!

Bud, Not Buddy

 

 

 

Curtis, C.P. (1999). Bud, not Buddy. New York: Scholastic.

 

Can you imagine waking up in a foster home with a kid sticking a pencil up your nose, just to see how far up it would go? That's what happens to Bud (not Buddy) his first night at the Amoses. He doesn't like it much and decides to go on the lam...and to find the man he thinks is his father, Herman E. Calloway.

 

So begins Bud's Depression-era adventure that takes him from Flint to Grand Rapids, Michigan and includes being bopped on the head, a library, kissing a girl, jumping trains, brushes with the law and a man named Lefty. Not to mention you can learn some of Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things to Have a Funner Life and Make a Better Liar of Yourself. For example, there's Rules and Things Number 83: If a Adult Tells You Not to Worry, and You Weren't Worried Before, You Better Hurry Up and Start 'Cause You're Already Running Late.

What other Rules and Things does Bud have? Will Bud find his father? Or something more than he bargained for? Read Christopher Paul Curtis' often funny and sometimes poignant story about a boy finding who he is to see what happens!

The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963

Curtis, C.P. (1995). The Watsons go to Birmingham—1963. New York: Delacorte Press.

Grade Level: 5-8

Genre: Multicultural (1996 Coretta Scott King Honor Book)/Historical Fiction

Summary:  The Watsons Go to Birmingham- 1963 is the humorous story of an African-American family told through the eyes of ten-year-old Kenny Watson. Kenny is the middle child. He has an older brother, Byron, who is thirteen and an “official” juvenile delinquent, and a younger sister, Joey, who always tries to protect Byron from punishment. Kenny does not get along with Byron and can’t understand why Joey always sticks up for him. Kenny’s parents are typical parents that love their children and do their best to take care of them.
The story of the Kenny and his family begins in Flint, Michigan. Kenny is smart, but he gets picked on, mainly due to his lazy eye. Kenny doesn’t have any real friends; the only one he thinks he has steals his dinosaurs. Then a new kid named Rufus moves to Kenny’s school. Rufus talks funny and is too friendly to be considered cool and the kids begin to pick on him instead of Kenny. Kenny thinks of Rufus as his “personal saver” and the boys begin to forge a friendship. That friendship is soon put to the test when Kenny laughs at a joke played on Rufus. Kenny has to apologize before Rufus will be friends with him again. During all this, Kenny’s older Byron is giving Kenny and his parents a hard time. Byron picks on Kenny all the time, charges grocery items to his parents’ account without them knowing, gets a hairstyle called a conk that his parents do not approve of, and plays with fire, literally. Kenny’s parents feel they are losing control of Byron and decide to take a family trip to Birmingham, Alabama  (where Kenny’s mother is from), where they will leave Byron with his Grandma Sands. Her job will be to straighten Byron out. The trip to Birmingham becomes an adventure in itself, riding down in the Ultra-Glider, listening to music, and playing games. In Birmingham, Kenny and his siblings meet their grandmother, Kenny almost drowns, and Joey almost gets killed in a church bombing. In light of the bombing and civil unrest, the Watsons return home quickly. Kenny has a hard time dealing with what almost happened to Joey, but Byron helps him through it and Kenny begins to start his life again.

Reflection: Before I read this book, I thought it would focus primarily on the Civil Rights Movement. I was rather shocked to find that the Civil Rights Movement was not even mentioned until the very end of the book. Christopher Paul Curtis takes a different approach. He tells the story of an African-American family in the North, removed from the civil unrest in the South. He involves the reader in their life, telling humorous stories about the “Weird Watsons.” Then, towards the end of the story, he sends the Watsons to the Deep South, where one of them is involved in one of the biggest events in our nation’s history. Then the Watsons leave and deal with the tragic event in their home in the North. So the story was told from the view of a ten-year-old African-American boy who lives in Michigan. I think this is an innovative way to tell a story about the Civil Rights Movement.

This book would be absolutely invaluable in the classroom. Students would enjoy it because it is easy to read, it is funny, and they can relate to the characters in the story, regardless of their race. The book could be used to teach about the Civil Rights Movement and the effects of racism, prejudice, and discrimination, the nature and value of friendships, the importance of family support, or about grieving and how people deal with grief in their own way. Students could take any one of these themes from the book and go crazy with it. For example, for the Civil Rights Movement, students could make a timeline, make a news broadcast about the church bombing, interviewing both white and African-American by-standers, or pretend like they are interviewing Rosa Parks. Students could make a collage about what it was like to be an African-American in 1963 compared to being a white person in 1963 or write a diary entry as Joey, describing the bombing. The really great thing about this book is that there are all kinds of other directions you could go to help the students make a connection to the book, to the time in which it took place, or to their own lives. Students could pick out the songs that are listened to by the Watsons and research the artists that performed the songs and what those songs said about the times. Students could plan a vacation like the Watsons did, down to the cost of gas and where they would stop. Students could also trace the trip the Watsons made on a map to see how far they traveled. Students could prepare a persuasive speech and deliver it to the class, like Martin Luther King, Jr. did in the Civil Rights Movement. Seriously, the list could go on and on, so I’ll stop here.

There are only a few issues (that I can think of) that may come up regarding the use of the book in this classroom. One of the issues may be understanding what it was like being an African-American in 1963. Another issue might be the violence of the bombing. Students may not understand why someone would want to kill little kids. A third issue might be the concept of racism and prejudice. I’m not sure how students would react to these things. It would depend on their upbringing and social situation. I do know these issues can be addressed and the book used as a tool in teaching and understanding about these things.

Beautiful Blackbird

Bryan, A. (2003). Beautiful blackbird. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Genre: Multicultural Picture Book (Coretta Scott King Award 2004)

Grades: K-3 

Summary: Beautiful Blackbird is the adaptation of a story that comes from the people of Zambia. The story is about a group of birds that are beautiful colors of the rainbow. However, they are unhappy because none of them have any black markings. They all want black markings so they can be like Blackbird, the most beautiful of all birds. Ringdove is the first to ask Blackbird if he could give him a black marking. Blackbird tells Ringdove that just because he has a black marking, that will not make him be like Blackbird, that it’s what is on the inside that counts. However, Blackbird ends up marking Ringdove and all the other birds, which is where the markings on birds today originated. The story ends with the all the birds singing around Blackbird and they were singing about the beautiful color black.

Reflection: This story teaches two things: 1) it is what’s on the inside that makes someone what they are and 2) black is a beautiful color. Both themes are important to teach to elementary students in order to promote tolerance, especially in primarily Caucasian classrooms. The illustrations are bright and colorful and will capture the attention of young readers.