Tell All the Children Our Story: Memories and Mementos of Being Young and Black in America [Hardcover]

Tonya Bolden (Author)

Book Description

Grade Level: 5 and up

The first book to trace growing up black in America

In a warm, personal voice, Tonya Bolden explores what it has meant to be young and black in America. From the first recorded birth of a black child in Jamestown, through the Revolution, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the fight for civil rights, right on up to our own time, Bolden brings to light how black children have worked and played, suffered and rejoiced. She covers a range of lifestyles, social classes, attitudes, and perceptions to portray children in ever-evolving states of life. Both unknown and celebrated children are included, from those remembered only from advertisements for the slave trade to those who would grow up to shape and make history, including Frederick Douglass, Benjamin Banneker, Sadie and Bessie Delany, Charles Johnson, and basketball legends Paula and Pamela McGee.

This important book, the first trade book of its kind, draws on a wealth of primary sources, including interviews, diaries, news articles, and historical documents, and is generously illustrated with paintings, photographs, posters, and other ephemera.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In what her preface describes as "this scrapbook, this witness of the black experience in miniature," Bolden (The Book of African-American Women) presents a pastiche of visuals and narratives spotlighting American children of African descent, from colonial times to the present. An abundance of period photographs, paintings, drawings and handsomely set-off extracts from memoirs, letters and journals create the appearance of a scrapbook or album; more importantly, they allow readers to immerse themselves directly in the historical past. An 1861 photograph of children outside an orphanage in New York City, for example, adds immediacy to the accompanying information that the orphanage was looted and set on fire during the Draft Riots of 1863. The first-hand accounts are often heartrending: in an 1868 letter to a Sunday school class in the North, a seven-year-old from Alabama whose mother has died and whose father "went off with the Yankees" writes, "Perhaps I shall get on the cars some time and come to see you. Would you speak to a black boy?" Bolden's overview meanders at times, but it is filled with intriguing, little-known facts, e.g., in March 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks touched off the Montgomery bus boycott by refusing to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin of Birmingham, Ala., was arrested for the same offense. This impressively researched, imaginatively presented history evokes deep appreciation for the struggles, perseverance and triumphs of young black Americans. Ages 9-12.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 4-8. This compilation of the African American experience, from colonial times through the twentieth century, reads and looks like a family scrapbook. Divided into three sections ("Out of Africa," "Longing for the Jubilee," and "Lift Every Voice and Sing"), the chronicle is an introspective celebration of the lifestyles, struggles, triumphs, and aspirations of both recognized and unknown African American children. Readers begin their journey with the first recorded birth of a black child in America and follow along through the plight of the Little Rock Nine to the moving speech given by 14-year-old Ayinde Jean-Baptiste at the 1995 Million Man March in Washington, D.C. Photographs, excerpts from diaries and memoirs, and reproductions of artwork by black artists such as Charles Altson beautifully bring the story of each generation to life. Bolden vibrantly delivers her historical message through a contemporary perspective. Cynthia Turnquest
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams; First Edition edition (February 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810944960
• ISBN-13: 978-0810944961
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #628,974 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Can't recommend it highly enough!, May 23, 2003

By 

AfroAmericanHeritage (Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tell All the Children Our Story: Memories and Mementos of Being Young and Black in America (Hardcover)

Imagine a scrapbook compiled collectively and intimately by African Americans from the first recorded birth of a black child in Jamestown, through the Revolution, Civil War, Reconstruction and right up to our own time, amply illustrated with compelling images, literature, personal recollections, art works, cartoons and ephemera, and you might begin to picture this book. It's impossible to describe fully...you really have to experience it. I can't recommend this book highly enough...there's something new and amazing to be found on every page!