claudette colvin twice toward justice book

Hoose clearly made the best choice by letting Colvin’s voice shine and allowing her to narrate as much as possible of her book. Significant portions of this book are told in the first person, taken directly from extensive interviews with Ms. Most books by white men about black history tend to assume an authoritative, know-it-all position that often leaves out details important to the people who were living that history. What it is inside was a little different than I’d expected. This is “The acclaimed true story of the girl who changed history” according to the front cover.

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose. Her story is now coming to light for a new generation. The first black woman (really a girl) to refuse to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus and be arrested for doing so, she knew and inspired Rosa Parks, but was not considered suitable to be the face of the movement. Winner of the National Book Award and a Newberry Honor Book.īefore Rosa Parks was a household name, there was Claudette Colvin. Square Fish Imprint, Macmillan, New York, 2009.Īge 10 + nonfiction, 150 pages including extras, notes, and index. Sibert Honor Book.Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose. Claudette Colvin is the National Book Award Winner for Young People's Literature, a Newbery Honor Book, A YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist, and a Robert F. Gayle, the landmark case that struck down the segregation laws of Montgomery and swept away the legal underpinnings of the Jim Crow South.īased on extensive interviews with Claudette Colvin and many others, Phillip Hoose presents the first in-depth account of an important yet largely unknown civil rights figure, skillfully weaving her dramatic story into the fabric of the historic Montgomery bus boycott and court case that would change the course of American history.

Undaunted, a year later she dared to challenge segregation again as a key plaintiff in Browder v. Instead of being celebrated as Rosa Parks would be just nine months later, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin found herself shunned by her classmates and dismissed by community leaders. On March 2, 1955, an impassioned 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. You have to take a stand and say, 'This is not right.' - Claudette Colvin When it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it.

Claudette colvin twice toward justice book