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Coretta Scott King Author Award
Day of Tears: A Novel in Dialogue
Click to order via AmazonReading level: Ages 9-12
Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: Jump At The Sun; Reprint edition (April 1, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1423104099
In Day of Tears, Julius Lester exposes the devastating reality of the slave experience. The novel begins with the largest slave auction in American history (later known as The Weeping Time). During the auction, members of slave families are sold to different masters and must face the fact that they will never see each other again. Lester takes you into the minds of the slaves and masters as he follows a girl's journey from slavery to a life of freedom. adults read my YA books and never know that [they were] marketed for YA. I just write, and the books find the readers they�re supposed to have.
Coretta Scott King Author Honor Books
Maritcha: A Nineteenth-Century American Girl
Click to order via Amazonby Tonya Bolden
Reading level: Ages 9-12
Hardcover: 48 pages
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (February 1, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0810950456
ISBN-13: 978-0810950450A much-needed window into a little-documented time in black history
Based on an actual memoir written by Maritcha R’mond Lyons, who was born and raised in New York City, this poignant story tells what it was like to be a black child born free during the days of slavery. Everyday experiences are interspersed with high-point moments, such as visiting the U.S.'s first world's fair. Also included are the Draft Riots of 1863, when Maritcha and her siblings fled to Brooklyn while her parents stayed behind to protect their home. The book concludes with her fight to attend a whites-only high school in Providence, Rhode Island, and her triumphant victory, making her the first black person in its graduating class.
The book includes photographs of Maritcha, her family, and friends, as well as archival and contemporary maps, photographs, and illustrations. AUTHOR BIO: Tonya Bolden's books have received acclaim from organizations such as the American Library Association and the New York Public Library, and from publications like School Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, and Publishers Weekly.
Dark Sons
Click to order via Amazonby Nikki Grimes
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Jump At The Sun (March 20, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1423102517
ISBN-13: 978-1423102519Grade 6 Up�In free-verse narratives, one biblical and one modern, teenagers Ishmael and Sam introduce themselves and relate their parallel problems with their fathers. Abraham is exiling Ishmael, son of his Second Wife, now that elderly Sarah has finally had a son. Sam's dad has left Sam's mother for a younger white woman. In Book One, Ishmael's poems express his pain, confusion, and love:
Half Chaldean.
Half Egyptian.
Half slave.
Half free.
Half loved.
Half hated.
Half blessed.All me. His story is set against the background of nomadic desert life, always in the context of God's relations with, and plans for, him. Book Two gives present-day Brooklynite Sam his say:
black man breaks
black woman's heart
to marry white witch.He's angry at his father, baffled by his mother, and resistant to his stepmother's friendly overtures. Luckily he has friends and faith; prayer and a kiss from a potential girlfriend provide some peace. The biggest obstacle turns out to be the biggest help: his dad's new son worms his way into his half-brother's heart. Books Three and Four continue the first-person accounts: Abraham's second son is clearly his favorite, and Sarah (a witch here) withdraws her love from Ishmael. Anger and jealousy threaten Ishmael's relations with his father and with God. Sam's father leaves him disillusioned and betrayed. The cross-play is effective, though Sam's story is more vivid and engaging. References to God (not Jesus) layer another father into the mix. Religion is a key part of the healing, but even faith-challenged readers can admire and learn from these stories of struggle in vernacular verse.�Patricia D. Lothrop, St. George's School, Newport, RI Copyright � Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --
A Wreath for Emmett Till
Click to order via Amazonby Marilyn Nelson Illustrated by Philippe Lardy
Binding: Hardcover
EAN: 9780618397525
ISBN: 0618397523
Number Of Pages: 48
Publication Date: April 04, 2005
Publisher: Houghton MifflinIn 1955, people all over the United States knew that Emmett Louis Till was a fourteen-year-old African American boy lynched for supposedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. The brutality of his murder, the open-casket funeral, and the acquittal of the men tried for the crime drew wide media attention.
Award-winning poet Marilyn Nelson reminds us of the boy whose fate helped spark the civil rights movement. This martyr's wreath, woven from a little-known but sophisticated form of poetry, challenges us to speak out against modern-day injustices, to "speak what we see."
Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award
Rosa
Click to order via Amazon
by Nikki Giovanni, illustrated by Bryan Collier
Reading level: Ages 4-8
Hardcover: 40 pages
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR) (September 15, 2005)
ISBN-10: 0439898838
Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.4 x 0.7 inches
Rosa Parks's personal story moves quickly into a summary of the Civil Rights movement in this striking picture book. Parks is introduced in idealized terms. She cares for her ill mother and is married to one of the best barbers in the county. Sewing in an alterations department, Rosa Parks was the best seamstress. Her needle and thread flew through her hands like the gold spinning from Rumpelstiltskin's loom. Soon the story moves to her famous refusal to give up her seat on the bus, but readers lose sight of her as she waits to be arrested. Giovanni turns to explaining the response of the Women's Political Caucus, which led to the bus boycott in Montgomery. A few events of the movement are interjected�the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the aftermath and reactions to the murder of Emmett Till, the role of Martin Luther King, Jr., as spokesperson. Collier's watercolor and collage scenes are deeply hued and luminous, incorporating abstract and surreal elements along with the realistic figures. Set on colored pages, these illustrations include an effective double foldout page with the crowd of successful walkers facing a courthouse representing the 1956 Supreme Court verdict against segregation on the buses. Many readers will wonder how it all went for Parks after her arrest, and there are no added notes. Purposeful in its telling, this is a handsome and thought-provoking introduction to these watershed acts of civil disobedience.’margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston Copyright � Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Award
Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan
Click to order via Amazonwritten and illustrated by R. Gregory Christie
Reading level: Ages 9-12
Hardcover: 40 pages
Publisher: Lee & Low Books (May 30, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1584302321
ISBN-13: 978-1584302322
Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 9 x 0.5 inchesA young boy unites with thousands of other orphaned boys to walk to safety in a refugee camp in another country, after war destroys their villages in southern Sudan. Based on true events.
John Steptoe Award for New Talent
Jimi & Me
Click to order via Amazonby Jaime Adoff
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Jump At The Sun (August 15, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0786852143
ISBN-13: 978-0786852147
Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
An electrifying novel about love, loss, and the power of music After his father is murdered, Keith and his mother try desperately to pick up the pieces of their lives. But his father's death has left them devastated both emotionally and financially. Forced to leave Brooklyn and move in with his aunt, Keith urgently clings to every last reminder of his dad, discovering comfort in his own music and that of the late legend; and his father's idol; Jimi Hendrix. In Jimi's music, Keith finds solace, and brief moments of reprieve from his chaotic new life. But just as he begins to get a handle on his father's death, he discovers the secrets of his father's life--secrets that threaten to tear apart what's left of his fragile family.
