Remember: The Journey to School Integration (Bccb Blue Ribbon Nonfiction Book Award (Awards)) [Hardcover]

Toni Morrison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 3, 2004 | Age Level: 5 and up | Grade Level: K and up | Series: Bccb Blue Ribbon Nonfiction Book Award (Awards)

Toni Morrison has collected a treasure chest of archival photographs that depict the historical events surrounding school desegregation. These unforgettable images serve as the inspiration for Ms. Morrison’s text—a fictional account of the dialogue and emotions of the children who lived during the era of “separate but equal” schooling. Remember is a unique pictorial and narrative journey that introduces children to a watershed period in American history and its relevance to us today.
Remember will be published on the 50th anniversary of the groundbreaking Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision ending legal school segregation, handed down on May 17, 1954.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 3-8–This unusual blend of archival photographs, historical background, and fictional narrative brings to life the experiences and emotions of the African-American students who made the tumultuous journey to school integration. Dramatic, mostly full-page, black-and-white photographs make up the bulk of the book. An introduction sets the scene, and factual pages, consisting of several sentences, are scattered throughout. They explain the significance of the events, the trauma of racial conflict, the courage and determination of African Americans and their supporters, and the importance of remembering and understanding. With poignant simplicity and insight, Morrison imagines the thoughts and feelings of some of the people in the pictures. The wrenching, inspiring autobiographical school integration memoirs of first-grader Ruby Bridges (Through My Eyes [Scholastic, 1999]) and Little Rock Nine high school junior Melba Pettillo Beals (Warriors Don't Cry [Washington Square, 1995]) offer greater immediacy and convey a powerful message for future generations about the need for understanding, self-awareness, and self-respect. However, Morrison's reflective interpretation presents a gentler guide for younger readers. Appended are a chronology of "Key Events in Civil Rights and School Integration History"; "Photo Notes" that describe the actual date, location, and content of each picture; and a dedication that recalls the four young girls killed in the bombing of their Birmingham, AL, church in 1963. The provocative, candid images and conversational text should spark questions and discussion, a respect for past sacrifices, and inspiration for facing future challenges.–Gerry Larson, Durham School of the Arts, NC
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 5-12. The photos are electrifying. Beautifully reproduced in sepia prints, the archival images humanize the politics of the civil rights movement. The leaders are shown, but the focus is on ordinary young people and the role they played in school integration. In her eloquent introduction, Morrison talks about what the pictures show: the reality of separate but equal, the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision, the nationwide movement to eliminate racist laws. On the page opposite each photo, however, she imagines the thoughts and feelings of kids in the photos, and the intrusive fictionalized comments get in the way of the visual images ("I think she likes me, but . . .What will I do if she hates me?"). The fiction is not about the angry white mobs; there's no verbal racist confrontation. But there's hatred in the pictures, and children will constantly turn back to the photo notes at the end to find out more. Every library will want this not for the condescending made-up stuff but for the stirring history. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Hardcover: 80 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children; None edition (May 3, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 061839740X
• ISBN-13: 978-0618397402
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 9.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,310 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #9 in Books > Children's Books > History > United States > 1900s
  • #27 in Books > Children's Books > Social Situations > Prejudice & Racism
  • #44 in Books > Children's Books > Education & Reference > School & Education

More About the Author

Toni Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. She is the author of several novels, including The Bluest Eye, Beloved (made into a major film), and Love. She has received the National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize. She is the Robert F. Goheen Professor at Princeton University.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When love was an ember about to billow, April 16, 2005

By 

E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Remember: The Journey to School Integration (Bccb Blue Ribbon Nonfiction Book Award (Awards)) (Hardcover)

When I was younger I used to love going to antique stores to buy old photographs. Usually these stores would have huge bins of old shots of families, individuals, and places. Finding the ones I thought were the most original, I bought them and gave each one its own name and history, entirely of my own making. I could pore over a single photograph for hours, enlivening it with a background that I myself would never be able to prove or disprove. But each photo was a staged affair. Its participants knew that they were being photographed. How different it would be to do the same thing, only with photos that highlighted a particular historical moment in our nation's history. In "Remember: The Journey To School Integration", authorial god Toni Morrison does just that. She takes photos that highlight the struggles and heroism of the civil rights activists (and their children) during the early years of southern integration and gives many of them their own little comment or story. Taken individually the photos are eye-opening affairs, even for adults that lived through those turbulent years. Taken as a whole they tell a tale that we should never forget.

The book is, in its own words, "a unique pictorial and narrative journey that introduces children to a watershed period in American history". In many children's books, such a title would begin with an Author's Note that speaks to adults about what the writer is attempting to accomplish. Morrison takes a different route. She speaks immediately to the child readers of this book. "This book is about you", she explains. She tells the kids about this dark period in American history. She gives them a briefing in the history and the multitude of reasons why we should never forget that this occurred. Then the pictures begin. They're all black and white images of a time long past. Segregated schools, dilapidated and far from equal. Small children like Ruby Bridges being led past screaming mobs of white people. Sit-in protesters smashed with eggs and glasses of water by red faced restaurant employees. Some of these pictures are familiar. The white and colored drinking fountains, for example. Some of them you'll have never seen before. White boys chasing a black one on the first day of integration at Central High School. An angry mob overturning a car containing black passengers. Children in Ku Klux Klan robes. But best of all are the photographs of the schoolchildren in the schools. The wary glances shared between white and black students (as displayed on the cover). The hand holding and learning under a single teacher. You can tell by looking that there's still a long way to go but that first step has already been taken. And Toni Morrison has helped to bring you there.

Morrison's words usually fit each picture perfectly. I thought she might have been giving a white boy carrying a boy carrying an anti-segregationist sign with his two friends a bit of a benefit of the doubt when she wrote, "I don't know. My buddies talked me into this". But it's nice of her to show that perhaps not all the white people presented here were evil. She also shows photographs of white people marching in protest with black, so you've a sense that the civil rights movement spanned all races and creeds. Her words give the child reader a chance to think and ponder what they see. Everyone here has a voice. Whether the reader agrees with that voice is not always a given.

"Remember" is an excellent way to introduce kids to a harsh moment in our nation's past. This type of format works perfectly with the subject matter. Better still, this is one way of showing to kids how children were the battleground of one of the nation's most contentious movements. Toni Morrison does their memory proud. A must for every library.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Morrison Masterpiece, February 8, 2005

By 

C. Remington (St. Louis, MO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Remember: The Journey to School Integration (Bccb Blue Ribbon Nonfiction Book Award (Awards)) (Hardcover)

Morrison has captured an era in her skillful hands and held it out for all to see, a remembrance and a memorial as well. She presents reality, but has smoothed the harsh edges, so that the truth stands out plainly and clearly. Her gaze is focused upon progress toward equality, respect, dignity and non-violence.

The pictures that accompany Morrison's deceptively simple text add great depth to the meaning of the book. They add a touch of poignancy that makes it personal.

This book is a poetic experience, inspiring and uplifting - no matter what your age.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fitting tribute to a volatile period in history, March 4, 2005

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Remember: The Journey to School Integration (Bccb Blue Ribbon Nonfiction Book Award (Awards)) (Hardcover)

On May 17, 1954 the US Supreme Court declared segregated schools unconstitutional, sending the nation on a path of integration whose ramifications are being felt today. In Remember: The Journey To School Integration, author Toni Morrison presents archival photos depicting the events surrounding school integration processes, accompanying photos with a fictional text recounting the dialogue and emotions of students of the times. A fitting tribute to a volatile period in history which should never be forgotten.