Customer Reviews

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (Jane Addams Honor Book (Awards))

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As a native of Alabama (Selma) and a graduate of Alabama State University, I had heard about Claudette Colvin but the informational was skeletal at best. To actually read her account of events and know that an ordinary teenager did an extraordinary thing that sparked the movement led by Dr. King is something I will always cherish. Would love to have learned about her life after Montgomery (Claudette moved to New York where she lives today) and her views regarding discrimination in the north. Great book, great person, historical treasure.

Most American school children know the story of Rosa Parks, but few know that before Rosa Parks started her protest there was a brave young teen who challenged the segregation laws in Montgomery, Alabama.

This is an amazing story - I read it in one sitting, it was so engrossing - of Claudette Colvin and her courage to speak up against the injustices of segregation. It's a great nonfiction for young adults - clear, descriptive background information, and many first-person accounts from interviews with Claudette and others. Fantastic. I think it would be great for kids in 5th grade and up.

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Nine months before Rosa Parks famously and courageously took a stand against the stranglehold of the Jim Crow laws, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin also refused to give up her seat to a white person on a crowded Montgomery city bus. Claudette's bold move added fuel to the outrage that African Americans felt toward the oppression, ignorance, and hatred associated with the country's segregation laws. However, local leaders of the African American community perceived Claudette's youth, personality, and class to be unsuitable for holding her up as the key figure to initiate a mass boycott of the city's bus system. Rosa Parks assumed this role nine months later, thus precipitating more than a year of organized protest to end segregated busing in Montgomery.

During this process, Claudette engaged in a second courageous action that played a major role in the civil rights movement: she served as one of four plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit Browder v. Gayle that abolished segregated bus seating in Alabama. In Claudette Colvin, Phillip Hoose shines the spotlight on Claudette's motivation and anguish around two actions that hitherto remained fairly obscure in the historical record. Along the way, readers are given a jarring reminder of the heavy oppression, fear, and humiliation that African Americans experienced on a daily basis as a result of the country's institutionalized discrimination. This book provides a vivid demonstration of the power of organized resistance and the importance of social justice for all people.

This book was very informing. I learned something I did not know. I always wondered why my father drew our feet and took the drawings to the store. I did not know that Blacks could not try on the shoes. It does make sense. The book put a lot of closure to some things I often wondered about.

Phil Hoose tells Colvin's story eloquently, in part because one never has the sense he gets in the way of Claudette telling her own story. A truly gifted writer, he frames the narrative, giving it rich, vivid context. He is a witness; he comments by letting the story, the times, and the images speak for themselves. Hoose lets us come to our own conclusions and make up our own minds. His telling of this courageous young woman's story speaks to us of our own power to create change, and our responsibility to do so.

After finishing this book one of my middle school students said, "I've learned it's up to me to do something about things I think are wrong and not wait for the President, or someone else, to do it." A perfect description of active citizenship. An extraordinary book - one that should be part of every middle or high school curriculum.

In reviewing this type of book, I have to wonder if it's the kind of book that Young Adults want to read, or the kind of book that adults want young adults to read?

Claudette Colvin, a teen on her way home from school, was one of the first to stand up for her right NOT to stand up on the bus, even before the better-known Rosa Parks.

That said, it's a great book. The angle of a teen who was active within the Civil Rights movement is perhaps a more relevant take for teens.

It's highly readable and interesting, with pictures that add to the story.

I enjoyed Russsell Freedman's Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott book more, and it was actually where I first heard of Claudette Colvin's role in the bus boycotts.

Content: This book does not gloss over the very real, hard facts of prejudice and does contain some violence towards Claudette and others that a younger teen might find disturbing. The book also addresses rape and Claudette's teen pregnancy. For this reason, I would recommend it for teens, not tweens.

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice is an illuminating piece of nonfiction. Phillip Hoose tells the story without condescending, but he also doesn't assume the reader knows anything about his story. As an adult reader, I appreciated the deep background provided in sidebars.

From the first pages, which are largely pictures illuminating life in the South in the era of Jim Crow laws, I was wowed. The book reads almost like a documentary; Hoose uses photos, text boxes, background, newspaper text and interviews to paint a vivid picture not only of Colvin's life, but these years in Montgomery, Alabama.

Who is Claudette Colvin? She was a high school girl who refused to give up her seat for a white passenger. She did it nine months before Rosa Parks, and she was arrested. Part of what I love about this book is the honesty, which is at times brutal. Rosa Parks is an American hero, and so many of us growing up being wowed by her bravery. This book takes us back to the way it really happened, which isn't as simple. It's not a nice little story, but it's real. As a librarian firmly in the "teach the truth" camp, I loved this book. Some teachers and parents may react adversely to it. She cooperated with Phillip Hoose, who interviewed her numerous times for this book.

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice is an important book. It's a book I found illuminating even as an adult reader.

This is a well documented easily read book about the involvement of Ms Claudette Colvin in desegregating the Montgomery Alabama bus system. To the author's credit he has accurately described some of the difficult and humiliating struggles that Afican-Americans were forced to endure at that time. His documentation of the vile Jim Crow laws and related enforcement is outstanding. The book is logically arranged and includes substantive documentation of sources.

This book is suitable reading for adolescents and adults of all ethnicities.

I recommend it highly.

J. D. Alberson

Well researched and well told for a young audience. An unsung heroine gets her due at last.

Why, oh why, is this book - not to mention its subject - so obscure? I'm 40 years old, liberal and fairly well versed on the civil rights era, yet I'd never heard of Claudette Colvin or had any clue that anyone did what Rosa Parks did before Rosa Parks did it. In fact, as I learned from this book, Rosa Parks' role, while vitally important, was really just a formality because anger over the bus segregation was already simmering madly due in part to the actions of Claudette Colvin and another teenager, Mary Louise Smith, who went before Rosa Parks and took the brunt of it.

Phillip Hoose's book, "Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice" opens with a brief history of Jim Crow laws and segregation in the South, specifically in Montgomery, Alabama. Most of the information should be familiar to most readers, but there are details that really bring home the reality of Jim Crow - such as the man named Brooks who was shot for refusing to get off the bus unless he got his dime back.

The next chapter is about Claudette's early life, which was nearly as tragic as most of her later life. Her father left his family and eventually her mother shipped her off to live with her great aunt and great uncle. Fortunately, Claudette was loved there and thrived, becoming a good student. However, in another tragic strike, her younger sister died of polio when Claudette was only thirteen years old.

Still reeling from her loss, Claudette becomes passionately interested in civil rights following the arrest and sentencing of one of her classmates, Jeremiah Reeves. The next several chapters chronicle the lead up to Claudette's refusal to relinquish her seat, the violent incident itself, and the fall-out therefrom. Unlike Rosa Parks, Claudette was hauled violently off the bus, thrown into a squad car, handcuffed and locked in a jail cell. She knew enough not to fight back or even resist, but nonetheless her white accusers painted her as a wild unruly teenager which, despite the lack of truth, made her inappropriate as the "face" of the bus protest movement.

Also unlike Rosa Parks, Claudette was not hailed as a hero for her actions. Many, perhaps most, blacks resented her for drawing attention to the situation and making their lives more difficult. Needless to say, she does not receive justice and her actions seem to have no impact on improving civil rights. Her story is an excellent illustration of the difficulty of standing up for what is right and bearing the consequences for no apparent gain when even your own friends and allies turn against you.

In yet another tragic event, Claudette was taken advantage of during this low period by an older man who left her when she became pregnant. As if she wasn't already "unruly" enough, there was no way an unwed pregnant girl could be recognized by the civil rights leadership. But none of that stopped plucky Claudette who agreed immediately to join the lawsuit Browder v. Gayle which was ultimately - more than the year long boycott - what finally ended segregation on buses and other public services.

This book is chock-full of important information which most students (not to mention most adults) are probably unaware. Claudette Colvin is a tragic hero who paid as high or higher price in the fight for civil rights as any, yet who - so far - has received little of the recognition she deserves. Eclipsed by Brown v. the Board of Education, Browder v. Gayle was a landmark Supreme Court case which paved the way for the end of segregation (those dratted "activist judges"!). And finally, while I think that most people are aware that there was opposition and even violence from whites, I don't think that most people - even many younger blacks - fully appreciate how entrenched Southern whites were against losing the "Southern way of life", how hard they were willing to fight and what they were willing to do to prevent desegregation. Even I was breath-taken again at the level of violence and the danger for anyone who spoke out against segregation. This is an important lesson to remember in an era in which many would like to convince us that the election of the first black president means that racism is dead.

Many thanks to Phillip Hoose for researching the life and times of Claudette Colvin so thoroughly and for writing this book in such a clear and accessible manner, especially for letting us hear Claudette in her own words. With plenty of pictures to illustrate the text, this book can be understood by readers as young as seven or eight, and should be read by readers of all ages. The book has won four major awards, including the Newbery. It deserves them all and many more.