Glory Be

Scattergood, Augusta    Glory Be    

 Scholastic/Grolier/Childrens Press/Watts  2012  202p  $16.99      978-0-545-33180-7   VG-BN    elm/ms      Historical fiction     

In this delightfully written book about friendship, civil rights and segregation in small-town Mississippi in the early 1960s, the first thought that came to my mind was that this was The Help for young readers.  Young Gloriana and her friend Frankie present their view of civil rights workers coming to Hanging Moss, Mississippi, and how desegregation brought about change in their lives and community, as their families approach the "problem" from two very different perspectives. It is well written and engaging, and the author does a super job of making a complex and divisive subject understandable for the young reader.          

VG-BN Lynn Fisher                Race relations, Civil Rights Movement, Prejudice

 

To The Mountaintop: My Journey Through the Civil Rights Movement

Hunter-Gault, Charlayne To The Mountaintop: My Journey Through the Civil Rights Movement  

 Macmillan Books/ Roaring Brook Press 2012  198p  $22.99

978-1-59643-605-3       ms/hs  VG-BN     Nonfiction             

This volume chronicles the Civil Rights Movement, from the point of view of Charlayne Hunter-Gault, one of the first black students to integrate the University of Georgia.  Supplemented with historical articles and photos, this narrative gives personal insight into the lives of many of the young participants in the movement, including that of journalist Hunter-Gault.  The narrative represents six years, 1960 though 1965, and it is interspersed with details of her journalistic career. 

Each year is separated by facsimile newspaper stories and illustrated with archival photographs.  Each newspaper story represented in the chapter headings is also included in the supplemental material at the end of the narrative.

Additional supplemental material includes a detailed time line running from 1787 to 2009 and a comprehensive bibliography and index.  But it is Hunter-Gault’s own story that makes this book memorable.  A very useful and readable addition to Civil Rights collections in middle and high school libraries.    

     

VG-BN Pat Naismith      Civil Rights Movement, Race relations