Rosa

This picture book is one I have assigned for my Children’s Literature course. Nikki Giovanni, the author, is relatively well-known for her poetry and her children’s writings – particularly for her focus on African American history and culture – and here she has treated the subject of Rosa Parks’ famous moment on the bus with characteristic directness and respect. I think the watercolor and cut-paper collage illustrations – by Bryan Collier – give the historical moment a very personal feel, meshing neatly with Giovanni’s obvious desire to connect the reader with Rosa on a very human, individual level – the book’s first page, for example, begins in Rosa’s kitchen and depicts a warm family scene of the start of an show more ordinary day. I appreciate the touches of ordinary that this book includes – heroes of all shapes and moments must, above all, be relatable, and Rosa Parks here seems far more personable than the dry figure so briefly acknowledged by history textbooks – and, overall, I found this to be a great introduction to not only Rosa Parks, but also her significance to American history. It is truly only an introduction, however – Giovanni does seem to assume, in leaving several holes in the narrative and in the logic of the reactions to Parks, that this book will be just a piece in any child’s experience with this historical moment. I think it is a fair assumption to make, but parents and teachers who read this book with their kids should be prepared to provide some context and answer some questions. show less

This Caldecott-winning book, written by Nikki Giovanni and illustrated by Bryan Collier, is absolutely beautiful.
The art is paper cut style/collage and adds to the layers and textures of this book. And the fold-out pages are a great feature to show the full scenes and journeys.
This is the story of Rosa Parks and her historic decisions that changed history. This book adds so many details and personifies the story in a way that makes the reader connect more. Nikki Giovanni's poetic nature is seen on every page as she tells this story we all know, but don't necessarily know all the details of. She gives us Rosa's background, her current plight, and her thoughts as she makes this tough decision. "She had not sought this moment but she was show more ready for it. When the policeman bent down to ask “Auntie, are you going to move?” all the strength of all the people through all those many years joined in her. She said, “No.”" This line really captures the situation and the importance of it.
After this, the author shares the aftermath, the bus protests, and others who were involved along the way. This book explores this famous historical event and the changes made because of it, all with beautifully moving art that adds so much to it. show less

This book did an amazing job of simplifying such an extravagant figure in America's History. The big idea of the book is to show readers how anyone can conquer a hard situation if they keep their mind on the goal they have placed. The pictures in this book did a great job of capturing each monumental moment in Rosa Park's life. Even the cover of the book, a police officer staring down Rosa, sets an overall tone for the story. It gave me a feeling of anxiety, which I am sure that Rosa felt during her monumental movement of not moving. There is always a sense of care and pride in Rosa's eyes that is also reciprocated in the text. The biography tells how she is trying to overcome segregation problems and racism in her town. Another example show more of how this story is very compelling is how the story, although it is a biography flows smoothly. Sometimes biographies, in my opinion do not flow and just seem to be a timeline of events of what that person accomplished. This book, however, was a story that captured feelings and how each major event affected Rosa Parks. This is a great idea for a biography because it adds depth and emotional feeling to such a well-known person. show less

Books about Rosa Parks abound, but this one stands out among the rest. In the post- Civil Rights era, Rosa Parks has become symbol of the movement, sometimes to the exclusion of her humanity. Giovanni’s lyrical prose succeeds in making her a real person to readers, with a sick mother and a husband to make dinner for. The book also connects Rosa Parks to the larger events surrounding her decision to remain in her seat; readers see the link between not only her decision and the bus boycott that followed, but also Brown vs. Board of Education and the lynching of Emmett Till. Collier’s illustrations are somewhere between collage and stained glass, and a halo-like light surrounds the heads of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. at show more critical junctures in the story. Rosa is welcome during Black History Month of course, but it would be a shame to confine a book of such caliber and importance to one month of the year. The only thing missing is an afterward giving information about Rosa Parks’ life after the bus boycott, and sources for further information. Readers will want to learn more after reading this book, and it would have been nice if Rosa gave suggestions for resources to do so. Apart for that caveat, I recommend this book highly. show less

We all know the story: Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus just because she was black and the other person white. This act of civil disobedience sparked a citywide bus boycott and eventually led to a Supreme Court case banning yet another form of segregation.

Except we don't all know the story. For children still learning about the world and its history, it's important that they learn about the civil rights movement and understand the (ongoing) history of racism in the United States. So this book aims to show a little slice of that, beginning with Rosa staying put on her seat, moving right along to the Women's Political Council who start the boycott and then to Martin Luther King's speeches and nonviolent marches, and ending show more with the Supreme Court case. While at first it seemed like this book was just plunging right into the story without giving young readers some backdrop, it does then do a good job of setting Rosa's actions in historical context.

Except that it sort of doesn't. My big grip with the book is that it misrepresents the motivations for Parks's action. The book portrays Parks as a woman concerned only with personal family and work affairs, who is daydreaming on the bus about preparing her husband's dinner that night (yeah, not kidding, that's an actual line in this book. try not to eye roll.) when she suddenly out of the blue decides she's tired of giving up her seat to other people just because of the color of her skin. The historical Rosa Parks was a very active member of the NAACP and very much had the intention of refusing to give up her seat so that a court case could come out of her arrest; it was not a spur-of-the-moment action of one fed-up woman, it was the planned move on the part of those groups fighting for civil rights. If the aim of a book is to teach children something about a historical figure, it should not give a misleading report of that person's background and choices.

Still, overall, this book does a decent job of talking about the civil rights movement succinctly while showing the toll that segregation took on personal lives. I think this book is useful for classroom or home discussions if teachers and parents are there to explain more about the historical events mentioned in the book and are willing to open up a discussion on racism today and things we can do to brighten the future, just like Rosa Parks did, albeit probably in much smaller ways! show less

This illustrated book focuses primarily on the brave Rosa Parks, a black woman who fought to sit in a whites only section of a public bus. Not only does this book tell the story of Rosa, but it also illustrates the fact that Rosa was compelled to action not only because all the nasty events that she had to face every day, but by the beating of young adult Emmett Till, a black man who was beaten beyond recognition by two white men who got away with murder.

The illustrations are lovely and contain images of Rosa, as well as a collage of what was happening during the time of Civil Rights.

The key strengths of this book are a) it's absolutely important message and b) it's stunning illustrations, which seem to be a combination of collage and painting. Rosa more than lived up to its promise in both categories.

But...I'm not entirely sure who the audience is for this book. That probably has a lot to do with the fact that I'm white. To me, most of the story seems to geared toward kids about 5 to 7--they need to be able to sit for longer reading sections and they need to understand some bigger words and concepts. But then Giovanni brings up Emmett Till, lynching (not defined in the text), and his open-casket funeral. So we've gone from the kind of harassments that kids might be familiar with from bullies (the implied "get out show more of my seat" and "you don't belong here", as well as Giovanni's ominously vague "potential for ugliness") to some incredibly dark territory, including words and events that adults will have to explain. (I believe there is now or soon will be a picture book about Emmett Till's mother.) This is a book-long story about Rosa Parks, but I feel like that one paragraph about Emmett Till would probably spark the most and most difficult conversations.

From that point on, as the story gets larger than just Rosa, it also has a couple sidetracks: in addition to the paragraph about Emmett Till, there is, for some reason, an entire paragraph about using a stencil-making machine. Giovanni also drops in the NAACP, "the nonviolent movement", "segregation" (not previously defined) and the doozy of a phrase, "makes no provision for second-class citizenship." All of these are important things, of course, but they mean that you need a kid who's a) old enough to either sit all the way through a longer reading or read this book for themselves and b) old enough to ask for more information instead of just getting bored when they don't understand something. That age probably varies by child.

I appreciate Giovanni's efforts to add in a few feminist comments, such as Rosa Park's thought that men take up more space than women. There's a parallel there with white people demanding that black people give them more space. Then Mrs.-Robinson-who's-actually-Dr.-Robinson has to make dinner, clean, put children to bed, and kiss her husband goodbye before she can go organize the bus boycott. To me, the critique is obvious--why the heck is an important woman doing all these chores without her husband helping when there's important work to be done? However, neither of these situations have any indication that this is not the way things have to be. In Rosa's mind, "Men take up more space." Period. Fact. To Dr. Mrs. Robinson, there's no annoyance or alternative. For both of them, it seems like this is just the way it is. If they can protest their treatment at the hands of white people, why do they let men walk all over them?

There also isn't really a conclusion to Rosa Parks' own story. We know she was arrested. How long was she in jail? How did she get out? Did she go to court? Did she ever get on a bus again? For a book called Rosa, this one doesn't stay focused on Rosa more than about halfway.

Gosh I feel like I'm being a grump about this award-winning, absolutely beautifully illustrated book. It addresses a lot of the annoying myths that white people like to say: that Rosa didn't stand up because she was tired from working (Giovanni spins this word out brilliantly) and that her protest ended segregation and that black people and white people all lived happily ever after. I'd love to talk to a teacher who uses this book in their curriculum to hear how they use it, what books they use as supplements, and what their conversations are like. Of course, these days this book is probably being banned from classrooms, because [sarcasm] how dare we teach children that progress is possible if doing so makes white people look bad? [end sarcasm]

Finally, about that amazing art: it's a little thing, but I love that Collier gets a little space for an illustrator's note. Ever since I started reading the historical notes in the back of American Girl books, I've loved reading everything that authors and illustrators can tell us about their work. show less