African Americans
Bayou, Volume 1
This graphic novel collects the first 154 pages of Jeremy Love's webcomic "Bayou." Set in Mississippi in the days of Jim Crow, this is the story of Lee, a young, black girl being raised by her widowed father. When Lee's best friend, a rich white girl named Lily, is swallowed whole by an odd resident of the local bayou, Lee's father is framed for the crime. As the lynch mob begins to form, Lee races off to the swamps to gather evidence of her father's innocence. But this land has more than mundane monsters of which to be wary. Golliwogs, fairy spirits of the dead, giant talking animals, and more hinder and, sometimes, help Lee on her quest.
The art in this graphic novel does an excellent job portraying Lee and her environment. At times soft and bright, and at others dark and moody, it entices readers deeper into this eerie new landscape.
Bayou Volume 2 will not be released until January 2011, but readers wanting to continue Lee's story can find her online at http://zudacomics.com/bayou
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice
Nine months before Rosa Parks' history-making protest on a city bus, Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old Montgomery, Alabama, high-school student, was arrested and jailed for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger. Hoose draws from numerous personal interviews with Colvin in this book that is part historical account, part memoir. In a work that reads like fiction, much of which is in Colvin's own words and the views of witnesses, we get a comprehensive view of the Montgomery bus boycott. At the center of the headline-grabbing turmoil is a teenager who became pregnant during the boycott; and her frank, candid words about both her personal and political experiences will galvanize young readers. Claudette didn’t get the reaction from her peers that she expected. This inspiring book shows the incredible difference that a single young person can make, even as it demonstrates the multitude of interconnected lives that create and sustain a political movement. Grades 5+.
