Customer Reviews

The Civil Rights Movement for Kids: A History with 21 Activities (For Kids series)

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Buy this book if you want a good basic history of the Civil Rights Movement.
The chapters are well written and broken down by topic and time period.
The book begins with a Chapter, "Let The Children Lead Them". This would be an excellent hook to introduce todays kids to actual kids and teens like Ruby Bridges,Barbara Johns and Linda Brown (Brown Vs. Board of Ed)that led the struggle against inequality in education.Other chapters include such topics as The Montgomery Bus Boycott, Student Sit-Ins, The Freedom Riders, March On Washington and the March from Montgomery to Selma. The book introduces us to both the leaders and ordinary people who took part in the movement. It contains excellent photographs of the era that are a teaching tool in themselves. The book brings the reader up to the present time and shows how the struggle for civil rights continues through the work of people like Marian Wright Edelman and The Children's Defense Fund.

However, many of the activities are inane. Making hippie love beads, having a "freedom feast" by cooking gumbo trivializes the people who risked their lives to change America.
On the other hand, one of the activities is a play about the Lunch Counter Sit Ins where part of the dialogue uses the N WORD. In my opinion using that word is just too explosive an issue to use with school age kids.
Great book for history, it is too bad that more time and thought was not taken with how to engage kids with meaningful activities that would celebrate and continue that history.

I really like this book, and am planning to use it for lessons in my classroom.