Rosa

Title: Rosa
Author: Nikki Giovanni
Illustrator: Bryan Collier
Publisher and date of Publication: Scholastic Inc., 2005
Genre: Biography, Picture Book
Age Range: 1st-5th grade
Awards: Caldecott Honor Book, Coretta Scott King Award

Summary: This is a different take on the Rosa Parks story. It starts with Rosa, working as a seamstress, sewing everyone's Christmas outfits. She leaves work and thinks about making her husband, Raymond, a meatloaf for supper, which is his favorite. She sits in the neutral section of the bus but the bus driver tries to make her get up for a white person to sit down and when she refuses, he calls the police. She gets arrested and the last part of the book talks about how that one statement made by Rosa Parks started a movement to stop segregation. Blacks start walking instead of riding the bus and the book ends by saying that it had been a year and blacks were still walking, to prove a point.

Response: I like this book, although I think it would be better for mid to upper elementary students because of the story. Younger elementary might not follow that this is Rosa Parks. I think that illustrations are wonderful. They look so life-like and dark to show the distress and frustration in Rosa's heart. I like the different point of view that this book shows, that most students have never heard before. I've heard the Rosa Parks story but never from her point of view. This lets you see how frustrating it was to be a black person and what they went through. This book would be good for children to hear to understand the story from something besides a history book.

Teaching Ideas: Scholastic.com has all kinds of lesson plans to use with the Rosa Parks story. Older children could pretend they are newspaper reporters and they have to report this story. How would they present the information? Younger students may just talk about what it must have been like to be Rosa Parks and what the world might be like if she didn't do what she did. Children could learn that you must stand up for what you believe. Children could talk about a time when they stood up for what they believed in.

If A Bus Could Talk

Title: If A Bus Could Talk
Author and Illustrator: Faith Ringgold
Publisher and date of Publication: Scholastic Inc., 1999
Genre: Biography, Picture Book
Age Range: K-4th grade

Summary: This story starts with a young girl waiting on the bus for school. When it gets there, she notices it doesn't look like her usual bus. Then it starts talking. It tells her the whole story of Rosa Parks and the girl finds out that the bus is the actual bus that Rosa rode on. By the time the girl gets to school, she knows everything about Rosa Parks.

Response: I think this book is wonderful to read to young children that don't know anything about Rosa Park or anyone in the civil rights movement. I learned so much from reading this book and because it is a picture book, young children will be able to hold their attention more. Children will also like that the bus talks. They will learn alot and not even realize it because they are amazed that the bus is telling them all of the information. It also starts with a little girl getting on the bus. Most children have rode the bus to or from school so they would be able to identify with it. The illustrations are also so bright and colorful children will love them. I would love to read this book to my class one day to introduce people that have changed the world. You could also read this to older children because it has so much good and useful information.

Teaching Ideas: The ideas are endless with this book. It would be wonderful to read at the beginning of the civil rights unit. Since Scholastic published this book, their website, scholastic.com, has lesson plans for it. You could have older children write a biography of themselves from the point-of-view of the bus or another form of transportaion. You could also make
the classroom into a "bus" and pretend someone is the bus driver and tell
everyone about Rosa Parks or anyone you are studying in class.

Moses

Title: Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom
Author: Carole Boston Weatherford
Illustrator: Kadir Nelson
Publisher and date of Publication: Hyperion Books for Children, 2006
Genre: Picture Book, Biography

Age Range: K-3rd Grade

Awards: Caldecott Honor Book, Coretta Scott King Award

Summary: This books explains the journey of Harriet Tubman and the journey she had in leading slaves to freedom. It explains it in terms that beginning readers could understand and is appropriate for young readers. This is a spiritual book and shows what God said to Harriet in bigger words to emphasize how important it was for her to trust God. There is even an author's note in the back of the book that explains Harriet Tubman's story in greater detail.

Response: I enjoyed this book alot, although it might be a little much for kindergarteners. This book makes you feel like you are there with Harriet the whole way on her journey. I think this book could teach second-third graders a lot about what Harriet Tubman went through to be free and what all slaves had to endure. I loved the illustrations in this book. The pictures were so big, it felt like you were there in the book. I also liked the way the words that God spoke to Harriet on her journey were bigger than the rest.

Teaching Ideas: This book has a lot of teaching applications. You could read this book in Feb. during Black History month, or when you are studying slavery in the south. You could visit harriettubman.com and learn more about her. She was compared to Moses in the Bible leading his people to freedom. Scholastic.com has a lesson plan for this book where students make a train from construction paper and put different things on it, such as, a summary of the story or people that might have been on the "train" that Harriet was leading.