Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice

This afternoon I sat in on a wonderful event at the NYPL’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.  It was a talk by Philip Hoose, author of the superb nonfiction book,  Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, and Claudette Colvin herself.  The event was for the Junior Scholars Program so the room was full of attentive teens as well as a few adults.  For me,  listening to Phillip and then Claudette speak to this particular audience made what they said all the more moving.

Philip began telling how he first learned of Claudette when researching his book We Were There Too, how he then wanted to tell her story, how he tracked down a reporter who was in touch with Claudette, and then how he was quietly persistent, checking in with his contact every few months until one day Claudette was ready to speak to him.  He spoke of how he was able to  “drag an important story from under the carpet of history.” He then gave an overview of the book, of the teenager Claudette refusing to move months before Rosa Parks, of her being jailed, of her courage when she later became part of a law suit against Montgomery that eventually overturned bus segregation in Montgomery, and much more.  There was at least one audible gasp from the young people in the audience when he presented a particular harsh story before he turned things over to Claudette.

And boy was she impressive.  She vividly recalled for us the memory of the click of the key when she was thrown into jail. She spoke of the way her teachers had filled her up so on that day she felt history glued her to that bus seat.  She reminded me of something I’d not thought of till then — that I had been in Montgomery at that time, barely three years old and my sister still a baby.  My parents were involved too, driving people during the boycott.  But this isn’t about us, it is about Claudette. And let me tell you, after reading the book, I was profoundly moved by seeing her and hearing her, especially in that venue and with those young people.  I thank @editorgurl for alerting me to this event.

And I highly, highly, highly recommend the book. Hoose’s research is remarkable, but it is the way he seamlessly interweaves Claudette’s own memories with his third person account (sprinkled with other quotes) that makes this book so outstanding.  Hoose does a beautiful job bringing in Jim Crow, the players, the situations, the trials, the arrests, and so much more while keeping Claudette’s own words front and center.  I think this book does an extraordinary job helping young readers today get a sense of that time through Claudette’s words and experiences.

The questions from the teens today were moving and interesting, reflective of their distance from a totally different time.  One asked if Claudette had been angry all the time. But she had not. Another asked about her heroes and she spoke of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

Today I heard and saw history right smack in front of me.

Coming Soon: Rita Williams-Garcia’s One Crazy Summer

My eyes stung. I was spilling-over mad. I couldn’t stop what I had to say, even if she stood over me and became my crazy mother mountain and knocked me down. I was spilling over.

It is the summer of 1968 and eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters Vonetta and Fern have been sent from Brooklyn, New York to Oakland, California to spend the summer with a mother they don’t know at all. A mother who abandoned them after Fern was born.

Cecile is still a mother who wants nothing to do with them. She refuses to call Fern by her name, leaves them to get their own meals, and makes it very clear that she wants them out of her hair and home during the day so she can do her work as a poet.  And so she immediately sends them off to the Black Panther’s People’s Center. “Can’t miss it. Nothing but black folks in black clothes rapping revolution and a line of hungry black kids.” They are to go for the free breakfast, stay there all day for the program, and just keep out of her way till evening.

Delphine is used to taking care of her sisters and while she is horrified at the thought of spending their days with the Black Panthers she also isn’t totally surprised — the stories Big Ma, her grandmother, has told them about Cecile are right in keeping with this sort of behavior. Clearly Cecile has zero interest in them. Zero. And so the three girls make their way to the Center where they meet Black Panthers, learn about them, and, as the summer goes on, contribute their own part to the movement. And by the end, they have gotten to know their mother, one of the more unique mothers of recent children’s literature.

Rita Williams-Garcia has created unforgettable characters in the three girls and their mother —they are sure to linger in your mind long after you have closed the book. Especially Delphine — she tells their story and she tells it straight. There are big and powerful moments in the book — say a poetry reading at a rally — and small sharp moments as well — say requests by whites to photograph the three girls. Big or small, they feel absolutely real and true to the characters, the times, and the ideals of the times. And finally, there is the writing — spare, poetic, and incredibly moving.

Come January, keep your eyes peeled for Rita Williams-Garcia’s One Crazy Summer. It is a keeper.

Holt’s Darwin Ladies

A few weeks ago I was in one of the coolest conference rooms, a prow-like space in the Flatiron Building, at the invitation of Henry Holt, to hear their Dynamic Darwin Duo, Deborah Heiligman, author of Charles and Emma and Jacqueline Kelly, author of The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate.  Afterwards I managed to get a very poor Iphone pic of the two signing (so I could tweet it, natch); please take it from me that Deborah’s face is as gorgeous as her hair and blue dress.

Coincidently, before the event I’d given Jackie’s book to one of my history-loving fourth graders to read.  Here’s her review:

This story is about a little girl named Calpurnia Tate of the year 1899. Calpurnia is eleven years old and the only girl out of seven children. It takes place in a little town called Caldwell County, near Austin, Texas.

Calpurnia’s mother wants her to learn what regular little girls of the time do; piano, knitting, cooking, and other house work. Because Calpurnia’s mother wants her to become a proper lady and marry to a nice man.

However, once her grandfather shows her his science abilities, she opens her mind into the world of science and begins dreaming to be a scientist. When she hears the stories about woman-scientists like Marie Curie and all kinds of history about them, she gets fascinated and wants to grow up to be one, too. They start identifying insects and plants. They find a new specimen of a plant Vicia villosa, a member of the lowly pasture. They finally get a certificate for finding a new specimen of the plants.

In the 19th century, boys could only go to college or university. However, the year of 1899 is over and the year of 1990 begins in the end of the story. So it may mean that Calpurnia’s hope of going to college and dream of becoming a scientist may come true in the new century.

The author is trying to give a message that whatever little girls wanted to be in the olden days, some had to quit because it made their mothers uncomfortable. But some worked hard enough to prove that they really wanted to be something that women usually didn’t do. I would recommend this to people who are into history and following their own dream.

This book was a fascinating and amazing. Even though it might take some time for some readers to get into it, I think it is a great book to read.

In addition, the book cover is beautiful and makes you feel like Calpurnia. At first when you look at it, it just looks like branches and trees. But if you look and observe it like Calpurnia, you can find many things; books, microscopes, jars, animals, and other kinds of creatures. It will feel like you are at the river with Calpurnia and her grandfather. You may feel like being Calpurnia in the story.

Candace Fleming’s The Great and Only Barnum: The Tremendous, Stupendous Life of Showman P. T. Barnum

Candace Fleming does it again!  She brings yet another larger-than-live individual from America;  this one is a wild ride of a biography of the Barnum that many young readers may well recognize from the circus that still has his name.  Filled with great stories, amazing primary sources, this is one terrific book.   Now rather than going on, I’m going to turn you over to one of my fourth grade students.  While I can’t identify her, I can tell you that she is an avid reader of history and nonfiction and read this book with great enthusiasm.  (We both marveled at Fleming’s vivid description of Barnum’s Museum and I then showed her this very cool site about it.)  Here’s her review:

The Great and Only Barnum is a wonderful book of P.T. Barnum. P.T. Barnum was an amazing showman like Candace Fleming wrote in her book. Fleming gave Barnum and his family a great part in her story. As I read the part of the Barnum’s American Museum, his exhibits came to life. They moved and ran in my head. I was amazed. His tours with famous people came to an end and Barnum started a circus. Barnum & Bailey was an amazing circus. Not amazing, it was brilliant. You can still watch Barnum & Bailey’s Circus. Its name was changed after P. T. Barnum had died. Now, it is named The Ringling Bros (The Greatest Show on Earth.) Its acts are all the same from the time P.T. Barnum and James Bailey had made the amazing show. P.T. Barnum’s life is all in this very amazing book by Candace Fleming.

Marilyn Nelson and Jerry Pinkney’s Sweethearts of Rhythm

With a twilit velvet musky tone

as the pawnshop door is locked,

an ancient tenor saxophone

spins off a riff of talk.

“A thousand thousand gigs ago,

when I was just second-hand,”

it says, “I spent my glory years

on the road with an all-girl band.”

So begins Marilyn Nelson and Jerry Pinkney’s outstanding collaboration,  The Sweethearts of Rhythm: The Story of the Greatest All-Girl Swing Band in the World.    Through the voices of the instruments, Nelson’s series of poems capture the story of this band as they performed throughout the United States in the 30s and 40s.  From fancy ballrooms to dusty picnics, these girl musicians were heard by a huge swath of the American population during a very challenging time period.  Nelson does a spectacular job with each separate poem slipping in historical facts about life in that time, the individual performer, the band, and the music.  Jim Crow, war and peace, pain and happiness, a myriad of fascinating details of 30s and 40s life suffuses these poems. And boy do they shine — bouncing, crooning, tootling, moaning, and blaring by way of those instrument storytellers.  Nelson respects her young audience, using big words and big ideas that swirl amidst sound, rhythm, pain, joy, and history in these captivating riffs of verse.

The poems would be fabulous enough, but add in Jerry Pinkney’s gorgeous illustrations and you have a truly remarkable work of art. Pinkney’s style will be familiar, but for the first time he has added collage to his work and it brings these images to a really heightened level, bright and brash like the music, quiet and sad like aspects of the life of the band members and their loved ones during this time.  Sweet.

This book has definitely joined my pile of favorites of the year.  It will be out in a few weeks — do look out for it!

Katrina Never Forgotten

In my experience as the daughter of Holocaust survivors, as time goes on there can be a tendency for the historical record of horrible events to become simplified — for certain iconic images and stories to take on the burden of representing all of it. So far I am heartened to see that hasn’t happened with Katrina. For example, two recent high-profile books have come out and everything I’ve seen about them gives me the imrpression that their creators have done things right. One of them is Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun and the other is Josh Newfeld’s graphic novel A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge which is featured in today’s New York Times and can be read in its original web version here.  Reading about them caused me to remember vividly sitting here that August and following what was happening in New Orleans, following the horrible aftermath, hearing from a friend who lost everything, and then being shown it firsthand by her when I visited New Orleans for the ALA convention less than a year later.  And because I want to be sure her story is remembered, here is what I wrote (and posted last year too) about that.

I got back early this AM and I cannot write about the convention
without first writing about New Orleans, a city I’d know before as a
tourist and convention-attendee. A place I know now as so sad, so
harrowing, so disturbing, and so full of the most remarkable and
courageous people I’ve ever met.

People like Pat Austin of the University of New Orleans who spent
three days after Katrina in a Baton Rouge motel parking lot in a tiny
Toyota with her sister and eleven cats. Pat who lost her house to a
levee breach, but who is totally and utterly and passionately
committed to her home — New Orleans. Pat, who wanting me to bear
witness, spend most of yesterday touring me in that same Toyota
through her beloved city. 9/11 made a New Yorker out of me just as
Katrina has made Pat more devoted to her hometown than ever.

Pat had shown me photos when I saw her at NCTE in November and again
when she stayed with me in March, but I have to say they and news
coverage had not prepare me for the magnitude of what I saw yesterday.
I think it is not possible to appreciate it unless one is in it. The
unsettled feeling I had around the convention center and the Quarter
(with so many places still closed and boarded up) was nothing compared
to the feeling I had yesterday on my tour with Pat.

She began by pointing out to me the miles and miles of destroyed cars
under the highway we drove along. They were being brought there from
all over, a dreadful Katrina automobile graveyard. I’d probably seen
them on my way in from the airport, but hadn’t known what I was
looking at.

She next took me through the Lower Ninth Ward and the adjoining
neighborhoods. Pat had taught there years ago and had been there many
times since Katrina and so was able to point out specific landmarks
to me. We drove around there for hours. The only analogy I could come
up with was being at Nazi concentration camps — that is, how the
vastness of the devastation really hits home when you are physically
seeing it rather than experiencing it in photos or film or in words.*
And seeing, so many months later, lace curtains in a window of a
collapsed home, a tricycle atop of pile of destroyed home stuff, the
official markings (which Pat translate for me) indicating the death of
people and pets, the ironic communications (”Baghdad”) and the
heartrending pleading ones (”donations needed for rebuilding”), the
signs (for lawyers doing claims, for people needing evidence, for
businesses specializing in demolition and rebuilding), the workers
(say a group having a lunch break in a playground), empty businesses
with signs as if they were open (strips of fast food places and other
familiar businesses) — all destroyed.

Worst of all was the horrible eeriness of emptiness. The sense of the
thousands who lived there, the ghosts of a vibrant and busy community,
of people who had worked to buy these homes, now uninhabitable. Mile
after mile after mile after desolate mile.

We then went to Pat’s neighborhood, to her house. She’d shown me the
photos back in November, but again there is no comparison to the
experience of being there. Of standing in her living room and seeing
the remains of her library stuck on the floor. Seeing the beautiful
chandelier which feels like the only thing the water missed as it
stopped a foot or so short of the ceiling. The sodden scratching
post. The waterlogged copy of Pat’s own children’s book (THE CAT WHO
LOVED MOZART) placed by her in the newspaper holder in front to remind
those who came of those who lived there.**

After that inexpressibly sad experience Pat took me to her new home.
What a joy to see that she has a lovely new place that she is making
beautiful with new and old. (For example, she showed me a photo of a
plush toy Babar in the midst of her old home’s destruction and then
showed me a washed Babar on the new bookshelf next to his book.)

But I’m not done for then she took me to the wealthy areas near the
lake that were as destroyed as those in the poorer communities we’d
already been to. She took me by the infamous levee break, by the
university run out of trailers, by homes being raised on pilings as
now required by the local government, by churches being restored, by
well tended gardens in front of gutted houses, by a remarkable
Vietnamese temple all bright and restored among desolation, by FEMA
trailers and storage units in front of elegantly expensive homes, and
by more and more and more. She explained, she pointed things out, she
kept apologizing for overwhelming me. Yes, I was overwhelmed, but it
was important that I saw. I still feel that I don’t have the right
words to express all of what I saw.

As for the convention itself, it was sad too. As much as everyone
wanted it to be normal, it wasn’t. The exhibitions were quiet, much
more than other times. Maybe it was just me, but there was a subdued
quality to many of the events and receptions. Remembering New Orleans
before, it was hard for me not to notice the difference and so walking
from place to place, to event or reception, it was difficult to forget
what had happened there only months before.

Yes, there were happy moments, of course. Watching Shannon Hale in a
red dress dance in bare feet up to the dais to receive her Newbery
Honor was joyous as was Chris Raschka’s homage to Karen Breen as was
Lynne Rae Perkins beaming face. Oh, and Chris’s duet with Norton
Juster was great fun too. I (usually a curmudgeon about this sort of
thing) proudly wore my “I LIKE MIMI” button (done in the style of the
old “I LIKE IKE” button) to honor Mimi Kayden who received a life-time
achievement award. Bill Joyce had to rescind his invitation to enjoy
absinthe (evidently the W Hotel wasn’t willing to host something still
illegal), but the mint juleps weren’t bad.

But what I’m coming home with and still processing clearly is not the
ALA convention, but New Orleans. I sure hope they can come back; I
really really really really do.

* When I told this to my father he said it sounded even more liked the bombed-out cities he saw at the end of World War II, cities like his home of Frankfurt.

** The house was eventually razed (Pat showed me photos of that too) and, last I knew, Pat was gardening the land.

In the Classroom: If You Knew Time Like I Knew Time

The other day I started to read aloud a not-yet-published book set in 1979. The kids and I spoke about that being some time ago. One child said, “Oh yeah, that was when the Depression was.” Another’s face light up — ” You watch “Lost” don’t you? Right now they are in the 70s!”

Picturing the Past

Can we teach history in a way that really engages students’ imaginations? How to make best use of outstanding historical books for young readers as well as primary sources? Join award-winning authors and fellow educators as we explore ways to help young people form their own memorable pictures of the past!

The above quote is from the brochure describing “Picturing the Past,” a superb conference at the JFK Presidential Library and Museum in Boston I had the great fortune to be part of this Tuesday.  Sam Rubin, Esther Kohn, and other staff members did a truly outstanding job designing, planning, and running this event.   I was honored to be in the company of children’s book creators Walter Dean Myers, Ellen Levine, Wendell Minor, and Martin W. Sandler and follow educators Myra Zarnowski, Rhonda Clevenson, Mary Kelleher, Jessie Gerson-Nieder and Trevor Wrankmore.

The day before the conference some of us were taken on a tour of the JFK Presidential Birthplace. I had been joking beforehand that every time I saw the words “presidential birthplace” I would think of a log cabin (a bit too much Lincoln centennial perhaps?), but now that I’ve been I will no more. This house was indeed where Kennedy was born, but the family moved when he was three. In 1967 the Kennedy family bought back the house and Rose Kennedy worked to restore it as she remembered it in 1917.  So it is a fascinating melange of her memories (as opposed to any sort of historical verisimilitude) her memorializing of her slain son, and something of what life was like in 1917 Boston.  Absolutely fascinating. That evening we enjoyed a lovely dinner at the Lineage Restaurant in Brookline (and I should say the butterscotch pudding is as good as all the reviews say it is).

The conference itself was, as I wrote above, superbly planned and managed.  I enjoyed the sessions I was able to attend, the museum itself which is completely engrossing, and our private tours of the Hemingway Collection and another room for the Kennedys.  The space, designed by I. M. Pei, is extraordinary, facing out into the harbor.  I thought it was pretty cool that I got to do my workshop in the Mural Room.  It has the mural that was originally surrounding the White House pool. Later it was turned into a press room.  But the mural is still there and I enjoyed having it around me as I spoke about the way I teach history.

I Want To See This

The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Donald Margulies scampers to the defense of good old-fashioned yarn spinning with “Shipwrecked!” The breathless story of a Victorian gentleman whose colorful past as a seafaring wanderer springs to life like a theatrical pop-up book, this kid-friendly comedy opened on Sunday night at the 59E59 Theaters in a Primary Stages production.

Theater Review – ‘Shipwrecked! An Entertainment’ – Donald Margulies Creates an Adventurer Afloat on a Sea of Story – NYTimes.com

PIcturing the Past at the JFK Presidential Library

At the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

Picturing the Past

A Conference for Classroom Teachers, Grades 3-8, and School Librarians

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

8:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.

This program will explore the use of imagery — through illustrations, photographs and other primary sources, as well as great writing — to engage students in history. Featured speakers include award-winning children’s book authors Ellen Levine, Walter Dean Myers and Martin W. Sandler, and noted illustrator Wendell Minor.

Conference brochure with registration form (pdf)

…and me too, me too! From the brochure:

Imagining the Pilgrims: A Creative Approach to Learning History
Veteran teacher and author of Far Away and Long Ago and Seeking History, Monica Edinger uses primary and secondary sources, children’s literature, and new technologies to develop a love of history in her students. In this workshop, you will travel back in time and experience life as a Pilgrim in Massachusetts. You’ll decipher a seventeenth-century journal entry, analyze children’s book illustrations, and learn how to guide students to write and illustrate their own historical fiction with imagined Pilgrim characters.