Claudette Colvin, in 1955, was a 15-year-old African American girl growing up in Alabama. She refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama a full nine months before Rosa Parks later became famous by doing the same thing.
Phil Hoose on history in the making
Claudette Colvin, in 1955, was a 15-year-old African American girl growing up in Alabama. She refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama a full nine months before Rosa Parks later became famous by doing the same thing.
The reason I write about sports, women's history, and women's sports history, is that I grew up loving sports. I graduated from high school the week before Title IX was passed, so I didn't have opportunities to play in school, like girls do today. I played at camp, on the street, and with my father and my brother.
When I’m working on a book, there’s a perfectly balanced moment when anything seems possible. It comes as I’m well into the research, bursting with ideas and dreams and enthusiasm. Once I start writing, it’s not long before I crash. Reality sets in fast: not everything that fascinates me is going to fit between the covers of a book.
High school offers numerous opportunities to integrate multimedia into literacy activities across content areas. In this month’s column, please find a sampling of ready-to-use materials that will enrich and stimulate conversations about books, support student research, and enable students and teachers to hear from writers and illustrators about their craft.
Forty years ago, two librarians and a publisher at the American Library Association conference lamented that no African-American author or illustrator had yet been honored with a Newbery or Caldecott medal. In response to that conversation, they decided to establish an award that would acknowledge the achievements of African-American writers and artists in the field of children’s literature.