Picture Book on an Historical Topic: Child of the Civil Rights Movement by Paula Young Shelton & Raul Colon

Bibliographic information: 

Shelton, P. Y. (2013). Child of the Civil Rights Movement. Dragonfly Books.

Plot description:

Paula Young Shelton is the daughter of civil rights activists Andrew Young and Jean Childs Young. In Child of the Civil Rights Movement she reveals intimate family moments as well as sweeping political atrocities and triumphs she and her family witnessed as they worked and lived alongside Dr. King and the other social activists in the 1960s.  Shelton shares her family's call to action, when they left their relatively safe home in New York to return to the Jim Crow South to participate in the march from Selma to Montgomery.  The known historical events are juxtaposed with warm memories of  Shelton's "civil rights family" - home-cooked dinners and trips to the pool with "Uncle Martin" and other members of the movement.  The book ends with Paula's family reacting to watching President Johnson sign the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on TV, and with a solemn vow from Paula to "march on" after her parents are no longer able.

 

Quantitative reading level:

ATOS Book Level: 7
Interest Level: Ages 5-8
Lexile Measure: AD960L

 

Qualitative reading analysis: 

Child of the Civil Rights Movement is told from the perspective of the author when she was a young girl.  The pages are not text-heavy, so that young readers/listeners can spend plenty of time pouring over the beautiful, soft illustrations. The book is made of six chapters that each relate a single story from the author's childhood.    At the end of the book, the author provides short biographies of the men and women who made up her "civil rights family."

The story is linear and follows a narrative flow that is easy to follow.  Particularly young readers/listeners will need help with some of the terminology used to reference the civil rights movement, though Shelton does a wonderful job introducing the topic in a gentle, childlike way.  The sentences are quite long, though they are broken up on the page like prose.

No previous knowledge is needed to understand the story, though teachers would do well to offer students a brief introduction/recap of the civil rights movement and what brought it about. Child of the Civil Rights Movement is an ideal book to read aloud to young children, since it will doubtlessly encourage questions and discussion. 

Content area:

 

• English
• Social Science: U.S History, Civil Rights Movement

 

Content area standard:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.2
Ask and answer questions about key details in a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.3
Ask and answer questions about what a speaker says in order to gather additional information or clarify something that is not understood.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.1.1
Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.1.2
Identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.1.3
Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.

  

Curriculum suggestions:  

Child of the Civil Rights Movement is an ideal companion to a unit on the Civil Rights Movement.  Shelton's narrative allows children to put themselves in her shoes so that they can experience a more personal connection to the Civil Rights Movement.  Students can reflect on the book through drawing or writing.  They might draw a memory of a time when they were treated unfairly - who did they ask for help in that situation?  These experiences can be related to the experience Shelton shares in the book, and the importance of the Civil Rights Movement and the people behind it.

 

Supporting digital content:

Classroom resources: http://www.tolerance.org/classroom-resources

Doing justice to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the classroom: https://www.teachingforchange.org/doing-justice-to-mlk-day

Awards:

 

• Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choices WINNER 2011
• New York Public Library 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing WINNER
• Bank Street Child Study Children’s Book Award FINALIST 

 

Other titles to consider:

 

 

Ellington was not a Street by Ntozake Shange and Kadir Nelson

 
Ron's Big Mission by Rose Blue and Corinne Naden