Customer Reviews

Little Rock Nine (TurningPoints)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

'The Little Rock Nine' is a story that never seems to lose it's luster. It is a tale of nine courageous youngsters that are brave enough to tackle racism. The story centers around one of the nine named Thomas Johnson and his friendship with William McNally.

Sounds simple enough, but Thomas' mother is the McNally's maid. Thomas and Williams share similar hobbies and enjoy their friendship, without focusing on society's view. Until the Supreme Court order Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas to become segregated and Thomas is one of the nine that will be attending the school. Under the harsh glare of society and their peers, we'll find out how true their friendship is.

The Little Rock Nine was presented in a different light with the focus off of the nine and specifically one and his story. I didn't really like the style, with it being like a comic. Misleading, marketed more toward teens in my opinion. A decent read though.

I wanted to like the graphic novel treatment of Central High's desegregation because I like the idea of turning historical events into approachable material for reluctant readers. But I didn't feel like this work did the historical figures justice. The beginning is slow to start and the characters seem two dimensional; however, the work gains steam and hits its stride midway through the episode. I had to force myself to keep reading, but the second half of the work is very well done. In the end, it just doesn't compare to the autobiographies written by Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine. There's nothing more powerful than learning about what happened through the voices of those involved.

There's a scene I remember in the movie "Forrest Gump" where the National Guard has to be called in to maintain order at the University of Alabama while it was being desegregated. One of the black students drops a book and Forrest (who else?) is there to pick it up for her. On national TV.

Even though I understood the scene when I saw it, and what it meant, I must admit I wasn't familiar with the whole desegregation business. This book turned out to be quite an education on the subject!

Little Rock Nine by Marshall Poe (author) and Ellen Linder (artist), focuses on the efforts made to desegregate a school in Little Rock, Arkansas. Already one attempt to do so had been thwarted and some of the parents were wary of again putting their children into harm's way, no matter how much they personally believed in the cause. The book does a good job of showing how difficult the whole process was and just how much was at stake for everyone involved.

I wonder, though, just how fresh has this whole affair remained in the collective American memory? I mean, we are talking about an event that threatened to tear the country apart at every level, starting from families on up to the federal government itself. And think about this; the National Guard had to be called in to protect Americans... from OTHER Americans!

Hopefully, there are some teachers out there who will decide to incorporate this book into their classes. They will use it to remind their students, and themselves, how much progress has been made.
And they can also teach people that even though racism may still be rampant, open minds and brave hearts may once again defeat ignorance and fear of the unknown, just like they did so many years ago in Little Rock, Arkansas.

I've always found historical fiction puzzling because some of it is definitely true, such as names of the Little Rock Nine. The opening of this book says names are coincidental and the product of the author's imagination, but this could confuse a beginning history reader. He/she may not know what parts to believe and which parts are made of. The good thing about that is it might make someone want to learn more about the topic so they can verify what's fact and fiction. I loved the artwork in the book; I was familiar with the storyline; and I liked how the artist incorporated how many Black servants and workers were around during these incredibly offensive conversations, but some white people acted like they were invisible. That's definitely a sign of the times.

This graphic novel, which is identified as a work of "historical fiction", reminds us of the personal risks taken by blacks and whites in the Southern US in order to integrate their schools. Brown vs. Board of Education is a fait accompli at the beginning of the book, and President Eisenhower finally demands that it be complied with by the end.

In between we have the opportunity to meet two families, one black, one white, whose sons become friends and are self-sacrificing enough to take the lead in the integration fight. In the process, we are reminded that there was no unanimity within the races: many whites favored integration, and many blacks resisted it. The story resonates with a more contemporary civil rights fight, that for gay rights, in that immigration opponents of both races find justification fir continued segregation in the Bible (without being able to cite anything, of course) and in what one character deems "God's will".

It is unfortunate that except for NAACP leader Daisy Bates, it is women who stand back while the men take charge, on both sides. This may well reflect the typical family structure of the day, but these are fictional characters, so it really wasn't required to tell the story.

What is most disturbing about this book is that, despite its subject--the effort to obtain quality education for all--a book stated as being for middle schoolers is in the graphic novel format, as if nothing but a comic could hold their interest.

LITTLE ROCK NINE should have had a better artist, sorry. It tells the tale very well but really suffers from a crude style that looks very high schoolish: not quite Trina Robbins but certainly cribbing her, and other former underground artists, style. What you end up with is a book that looks like those little Tijuana-bible-styled Chick Publishing comic books: those little morality tales that are so terrible that they are cool enough to rate shelf space at Quimby's Bookstore in Chicago. Her, though, I'm not sure what they were thinking...

The infamous integration tale of Little rock gets a cartoonish going-over that somehow can't convey the terror and craziness of southern bigotry and the obviously terrifying side of being the subject of so much hostility just because of skin color. What's missing is the depth of character that this deserved and lost with dull illustrations.

Dialog is faux hand-lettering and certainly by someone who is not 100% on graphic novel style. That gets a "D" at best.

While I'm sure it's fine for the age range of 8 to 12, there are considerably more artists out there who would have embraced this with a little more... something.

But worthy of library shelf positioning, even though the political correctness of its subject matter saves this from being deep-sixed.

While I was a little taken aback by the comic-book format, apparently that really appealed to my 9 year old. The night I handed it to her, she read it enthralled. It then opened up discussion about the actual events at Little Rock High, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950's and 1960's, and the current state of race relations in the U.S. With the presidential race heating up (and reminding me a little of the 50's and 60's again), this was a perfect time to get this book.

"If we don't learn from our history, we are destined to repeat it." This book is a great opportunity to help our children learn from our history. I highly recommend it for children up to about 12 years old, and for parents to discuss it with their children as well.

I'm not much into graphic novels, but I do enjoy reading about historic events. Although there is some strong language used, it is not used gratuitously and really helped to draw me into the atmosphere of the story. All in all, I rather enjoyed it.

This may not be something that your average adult would enjoy reading, but I would certainly make a case for young kids, maybe 10 and older, being assigned this as a short history reading project.

This book grabbed and held my attention from the first couple of pages. It's a very informative way for kids to learn about history. I was a bit skeptical at first knowing that it was fiction thrown into history and wasn't sure how factual the book would be. I thought it worked out well with a good combination of facts and fiction that still held true to the situation. It's a quick read book and using comic pictures also held my attention. I'm not one for wanting to read a bunch (or even a few as in this matter) of swear words in a book, although I am quite aware heated tempers at this time in history couldn't leave them out, however, for a kids book and as the authors did keep quite a few of them as "dang" or "heck", seems like it could've happened all the way through the book. Otherwise, this is a pretty decent, attention holding book with fiction and history well mixed.

Well, it's not going to garner much attention at Comic Con, and it's certainly not "Maus," but this title, and the other Turning Points titles, do serve a purpose: they chronicle an important event in American history in a way that will engage middle to high schoolers who won't pay much attention to their textbooks or history classes. If I were a teacher or school librarian, 6th to 12th grade, I would definitely have this on my shelves.


Everything is pretty straightforward here, sometimes a little too much so. This title would benefit from a little more attitude. All the same, it manages to get across a lot of the complexity of segregation, from a governor who takes a stand (ostensibly) on the rights of the state to a African American father who doesn't want his son to segregate, because he doesn't want to put his family in harm's way.

Ideally, a series like this would whet the appetite of teenagers, compelling them to pick up and read meatier material on the subject. I'm not sure "Little Rock Nine" succeeds on that front; it lacks the kind of kick that sparks the imagination and leaves readers wanting more. Still, I suppose some knowledge of American history, however surface it may be, is better than complete ignorance.