Module #5 - Hopkins Award Winner

Photo Source:  Powell Books Website. http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781590784402-0 (accessed March 25, 2011).

Summary:  This book is the most powerful book I have read this semester. I can certainly see why it won the 2008 Hopkins Award for Poetry, an award given to the most outstanding new book in children’s poetry published the previous calendar year (Vardell Lecture Notes, 2011).  It is a short but succinct free verse poetry book told from the perspective of a ten year old girl who, during 1963, was arrested for marching in a civil rights protest and who witnessed the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama and the death of four young black girls at the hands of southern racists.

Quality: The book is printed in grayish, sepia tone color.  The photographs included are of life as it existed in 1963.  The photographs are real and there is adequate citation to the photos at the back of the book. There is also an Author’s note that gives historical reference information about the actual events that are depicted in the book. The vocabulary used in the book is easily understandable by children ages 5th grade and above.  I especially like that the author incorporated a memorial, of sorts, to the four girls killed in the bombing. It simply adds to the quality of the book by identifying real people who were part of this horrible event.

Appeal: This book will appeal to anyone who is old enough to understand the circumstances of the Civil Rights movement.  The older and more knowledgeable a reader is about this time in our history, the more appealing this book will be. 

Use: This book begs to be used in the teaching of the Civil Rights movement.  Any social studies teacher should have a copy of this book in his or her room.  This book does not need anything special.  It simply needs to be read, out loud, to students in a voice that reflects the solemnity of the events described within.  An extension activity could be to have students to image themselves living during this time period.  They could write letters to say good-bye to the girls killed in the bombing.  They could write letters to those responsible for the bombing expressing their outrage at the events that occurred.  They could write a letter to the Birmingham newspaper expressing their views.  The options for extended writing are limitless, it seems.  For example, from the following excerpt, students could make a diary entry as if they were a child being kept indoors on the evening of September 15, 1963:

By evening, stoning, shootings, and fires broke out.

Keep our children inside, the police warned.

I wondered if I could ever play outside again.

I prayed myself to sleep that night.

Please protect my family, Lord.

God, give four angels wings.

I do think the use of the book is more limited in the elementary school and would recommend it more for the middle and high school age group.

References:

Vardell, Sylvia. 2011. TWU LS 5663 "Evaluating Poetry" Lecture Notes.

Weatherford, Carole Boston. 2007. Birmingham, 1963. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong. ISBN: 978-1-59078-440-2.