From School Library Journal
Grade 1-3?This brief autobiography introduces readers to Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott. The subjects of segregation in the South and Parks's experience when she refused to give up her seat set a serious and later, hopeful mood. Told in the first person, the text is powerful, accessible to beginning readers, and succinctly covers the events surrounding the boycott. Best of all, Parks ends on a positive note with the desire that children will learn respect, not hate. A few lines of dialogue, several dates, and the mention of locations put the story in perspective. Clay's watercolor paintings enhance the text. Other good books appropriate for the same age group include David Adler's A Picture Book of Rosa Parks (Holiday, 1993) and Eloise Greenfield's Rosa Parks (HarperCollins, 1995).?Mary M. Hopf, Los Angeles Public Library
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
Gr. 2^-4. Without dumbing down, the famous civil rights activist has simplified her YA autobiography,
Rosa Parks: My Story (1991), and made it accessible to beginning readers as a Dial Easy-to-Read Book. Like the original title, this one is cowritten by Jim Haskins, and the style is clear and direct, beginning with the drama of her arrest for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on the bus. Parks shows that her personal role was part of a wider political struggle, and she relates the bus boycott to the civil rights movement and to her continuing fight against racism. The design is spacious, with big type, and Clay's paintings, some of them based on famous photographs, capture the segregation scene and the fight to end it. The first-person voice gives weight to Parks' final message: "I hope that children today will . . . learn to respect one another no matter what color they are."
Hazel Rochman
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.