Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose

Bibliography
Hoose, Phillip. 2009. Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice. New York: New York. Melanie Kroupa Books. ISBN 9780312661052

Summary
This is the story of Claudette Colvin a 15 year old African American girl who in 1955, when segregation laws were still in effect in Montgomery Alabama, refused to give up her seat on a bus for a white passenger and was arrested.

Critical Analysis
Did you know Rosa Parks was not the first African-American to make history by refusing to give up her seat on a city bus in segregated Montgomery Alabama? Phillip Hoose’s biography of Claudette Colvin shows readers anyone can stand up for their rights at any age just like Claudette Colvin did at the young age of 15. Teenage readers will identify with Claudette’s struggles as a single mom during her young adult years, to her decision participate in tumultuous court case that endangered her life. The book will appeal to readers visually with the many photographs that depict the ignorant way thinking such as the sign that read “NO Dogs, Negros, Mexicans,” back when segregation was in place to the faces of innocent lives lost and the courageous boycott leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Junior. Tidbits of interesting facts, such as how Jim Crow Laws got their name, are sprinkled throughout out the 10 chapter narrative filled with interviews from many individuals that lived in Montgomery Alabama during the tumultuous times of segregation to desegregation.

Review Excerpt(s)
*Booklist Starred Review-“ Starred Review* Nine months before Rosa Parks’ history-making protest on a city bus, Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old Montgomery, Alabama, high-school student, was arrested and jailed for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger. Hoose draws from numerous personal interviews with Colvin in this exceptional title that is part historical account, part memoir....”

* Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choices-“Phillip Hoose’s narrative, which was drawn in large part from interviews with Colvin and others as well as additional research, paints a fresh, insightful picture of those life-changing times in Montgomery, looking at them through the experiences of a teenager who faced challenges for being both young and Black.”

*Kirkus- “Claudette Colvin's story will be new to most readers. A teenager in the 1950s, Colvin was the first African-American to refuse to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, Ala. Although she later participated with four other women in the court case that effectively ended segregated bus service, it is Rosa Parks's action that became the celebrated event of the bus boycott. Hoose's frank examination of Colvin's life includes sizable passages in her own words, allowing readers to learn about the events of the time from a unique and personal perspective….”

Connections
*National Book Award Winner
*Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction Finalist
*The Robert F. Sibert Honor Book
*Civil Rights
*Segreation
*Inspirational biographies