Customer Reviews

Ron's Big Mission

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Ron, a young boy from Lake City, South Carolina, grew up at a time when segregation laws and other institutionalized forms of racism prevented him from enjoying the privileges that came with having his own library card. Although the local librarian always greeted the library's most frequent patron with a smile and allowed him to read on site, Ron was not allowed to bring home the books he so loved to read. It took a courageous act of civil disobedience on young Ron's part to stand up for his rights, obtain a library card, and take a step toward the end of segregation in his home town.

Based loosely on actual events in the childhood of Ron McNair, Ron's Big Mission can inspire children to dream big about their future goals and also think about how they can, in big or small ways, work toward social justice in their community. The name Ron McNair is familiar to many, as Ron grew up to become the talented scientist and astronaut who, sadly, perished in the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger shortly after take-off in 1986. This background adds an even deeper layer of poignancy and meaning to the powerful story.

My daughter picked this book from the Scholastic book order form from school because the description sounded interesting. We read it as soon as it arrived and both my 5 and 7-year-old children listened intently. My kids are white and it floored them to think that this nice black child was denied a service that they so frequently use themselves. I especially like the author's note at the end, which indicates that this is a fictionalized story based on a real event involving Ron McNair, who later became one of the astronauts who perished on the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986. I read the author's note to my children and we ended up online watching videos of the Challenger explosion and reading up on why that explosion happened and what has been done to prevent that from happening in the future. I believe this story opened up a lot of learning opportunities for my children. There is great value in choosing literature that puts your children in other people's shoes, other people who are different than themselves.

The reason I give it 4 and not 5 is because I think some people may feel that the way that Ron choose to make a scene in the library as not a good example for young children. However, I simply explained to my children why he did this and why they do not need to do this themselves.

I highly recommend this book.

This little book tells the story of a young Ron McNair's (later famous as an astronaut who died in the 1986 explosion of the Challenger space shuttle) determination to check out library books for himself in a Southern down which denied that privilege to people whose skin color was not white. The book does not directly address the issue of racism. The message can be inferred from the events, dialogue, and pictures but it is a subtle message, not overtly spelled out. Most kids will see it as a matter of fairness: it is not fair that they wouldn't let Ron check out the books just because of the color of his skin. The story is also well-told, with a heroic Ron giving a smile to light up a room when things work out in the end. This story is as uplifting for adults as it is for kids.

I do not agree with the two one-star reviews here who state that children shouldn't be exposed to the issue of skin color because it isn't relevant anymore. If only that were true! Racism is still alive and well and children need to know from a young age that any kind of discrimination on the basis of skin color, or anything arbitrary, is wrong and "unfair." If the proper lessons are not taught at a young age, the wrong lessons may be "taught" to kids when they grow up from sources that parents would never want their kids to get their values from. I therefore recommend this book as highly as possible.

I must say I was shocked to see that some reviewers found it "inappropriate". I don't understand that thinking. Ignoring the history of racism doesn't make it go away, nor does pretending your child doesn't see people of different size, shape, ability, and color around him/her.

My son brought this home from school today. What a great book! Even the older girls came in to listen. This spurred a short discussion on history, race, and the Challenger accident.

It was well written, easy to read, engaging, and very well illustrated.

My 3-yr old daughter picked this book out in our local library for me to read to her. I was utterly embarrassed to be reading this story aloud to her in the library and very upset that this story was even in the juvenile section. I understand the importance of this story and I agree with it, but it very well could have the opposite effect on my young daughter's mind than was intented. The purpose of the book is to teach the importance of equality among races. I get that and I absolutely agree. However, I have purposely never referred to anyone as "white" or "black" with her and I am angry that this book did it for me as I read it to her. This was not something I wanted to teach her. I want her to know that people are people and things like race/gender/religion don't change that. Buyer beware.. this book labels people as "white" and "black". It's an important story with a powerful message, but I'm not ready to address this issue with my toddler yet. I like that she doesn't see people as "black" or "white", and this book came close to changing that.

this book was read to my 5yr old at school and is TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE FOR YOUNG KIDS. my child never saw people as a "color" before this book. people were just people until this book was read to him. i have now spent 3 weeks trying to undo what this book has done. while i understand this books importance for that time period, it is not relative today and should not be read to young children.