Karen Blumenthal writes nonfiction the way it should be written. I just wish my history textbooks in school had been written half as well as Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition (Roaring Book Press 2011). I would have learned a lot more and enjoyed it, too.
Blumenthal opens the book with one of the most chilling scenes from the Prohibition years: the Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago. Then she backs up decades to trace just how we as a country ended up in such a place. How did a Constitutional amendment presented with good intentions lead to such violence and lawlessness? She introduces the fascinating people who led the Prohibition movement such as Morris Shepherd (the Father of National Prohibition) and Carrie Nation (axe-wielding bar smasher). She doesn’t neglect those who profited from Prohibition, including Al “Scarface” Capone, the notorious gangster blamed (possibly wrongly) for the Valentine’s Day Massacre.
She also gives a gripping narrative of the political maneuvering that led Prohibition’s successful passage and eventual repeal. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union and Anti-Saloon League used propaganda spread through the media and schools to spread their message and change minds. They certainly knew the value of and used publicity stunts, including the use of children. They also were savvy in approaching first local and state governments before taking to the national stage. Blumenthal weaves together many of the strands of history–women’s suffrage, World War I, governmental roles–that influenced Prohibition.
Once Prohibition came into effect with the Eighteenth Amendment and Volstead Act, the nation began to learn the effect of unintended consequences. Those chapters were some of the most fascinating. I can see my students being fascinated not only with the bigger than life Capone, but also with the beginnings of NASCAR from the good old boys who earned their money smuggling illegal booze from one place to another. For those who want to learn more, lists many possibilities (organized by topic) in the Bibliography and Source Notes.
I can’t wait to share this title in my classroom once school starts again. It is sure to be a hit.
Ruth Thompson has collected a haunting assortment of images and writings from Terezin, a small fortress town in the Czech Republic that the Zazis turned into a Jewish ghetto during World War II. Thousands of Jewish people from across Europe were imprisoned here. Many of them left for their deaths at Auschwitz. The ones who remained struggle to survive the harsh physical conditions and debasing treatment by the Nazis.
Words quoted from the letters, journals, diaries, memoirs, and interviews of the Jewish people who were transported to Terezin tell the story of deception and cruelty. It begins with Hitler’s rise to power in Germany and subsequent invasion of Czechoslovakia. It continues with the passage of laws that placed more and more restrictions on Jews until they were gathered onto railway cars–freight cars, not passenger cars–and deposited at Terezin. In spite of impossible conditions–starvation, disease, hard labor–the people of Terezin carried on. Teachers taught children in secret. Musicians and professors gave concerts and lectures. Artists who were supposed to draw propaganda for the Nazis also created secret drawings that showed life as it really was at Terezin.
The drawings of these brave artists fill the pages with raw emotion. There is such stark contrast between the drawings they were forced to do for the Nazis and the drawings that reveal the truth. One of the artists, Friedl Dicker Brandeis secretly taught the children in Terezin art and hid over 4,000 of their drawings before she was transported to Auschwitz. There are also photographs of Terezin as it is now and photographs from Nazi propaganda that showed a false front to cover up the horrors when representatives of the Red Cross visited in 1944.
I first read about Terezin in Inge Auerbacher’s I Am a Star. These two books would be good to read together. Terezin Voices from the Holocaust gives the historical context while I Am a Star lets you inside the memories of a child who survived it. Together, they give students today a glimpse into the horror caused by prejudice and intolerance.
When you think of the Civil Rights Movement, whose name first comes to mind as the impetus for the Montgomery bus boycott?
Claudette Colvin
Rosa Parks
Mary Louise Smith
Rosa Parks has gone down in history for her role in not giving up her seat on the Montgomery buses, but she was not the first. Nine months earlier, Claudette Colvin, a high school junior, refused to give up her seat on the bus. She was arrested and harrassed. She returned to school amid controversy and questions. It seemed that Civil Rights leaders were taken by surprise by her rebellion and weren’t sure a teenage girl from a poor section of town was the person to become the public face of a segretation showdown.
Having grown up during a time of integrated schools and public places, it is hard for me to imagine the horrors segregation imposed. Claudette’s story brings home the injustice and unfairness and shines a light on the brutal treatment she and her family and neighbors endured every day. I found myself angry at her treatment by the white police and by the Civil Rights leaders who passed over her contribution. I also found myself rejoicing in Claudette’s pride that it took a school girl to speak out for the first cry for justice and goad her elders into taking action instead of just talking about it.
Even though Claudette did not get recognition of her role at that time, she later testified in the case Browder v. Gayle, which forced the integration of Montgomery buses and brought an end to the boycott. History nearly overlooked the bravery Claudette showed in her cry for freedom. I am glad that Phillip Hoose researched her story and shared it in Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice.
Claudette’s story doesn’t stop way back then. There are still injustices in the world today. Check out the Community Project to see how you can take a stand and speak out against injustice, too. Listen to Claudette’s story in her own voice:
It turns out almost everything I learned about early US History was wrong. Squanto–actually Tisquantum–was not just a friendly Indian who helped the Pilgrims plant corn and survive the winter. The “New World” was not a vast untamed wilderness, either. The civilizations that filled North and South America were much larger, far older, and more complex than historians realized.
Maybe history doesn’t change, but our understanding of it sure does. Charles C. Mann journeys through those places long ago and far away to reveal a clearer picture of what life may have been like in Before Columbus: The Americans of 1491 (Scholastic 2009). Historians and archaeologists hotly debate which version of history is accurate, and this book raises those interesting questions.
If more nonfiction was written in such an engaging manner as this is, I’d definitely become a fan. In fact, I’ve already read excerpts of 1491 (the grown up version) on Mann’s website and want more. This YA version is packed with pictures and photos as well as astounding facts and stories. Sidebars raise–and offer possible answers–to intriguing questions such as Too Many Mummies? or Why No Wheels?
Mann starts with one of the best-known stories our our country’s beginnings–the Pilgrims–and explains why the simple school version is not nearly enough. The real deal is much more interesting as well, whether Mann is exploring the history of the Pilgrims or the Maya or Inca or other ancient civilizations. This book goes well with one of last year’s Young Hoosier nominees: Who Was First: Discovering the Americas by Russell Freedman.
Inge Auerbacher was one of only 100 children to survive the Nazi concentration camp of Terezin in Czeckoslovakia. Over 15,000 children passed through the gates of Terezin from 1941 through 1945. She tells of her family’s horrifying experiences as the Nazis loom every larger and closer over their fates in I Am a Star: Child of the Holocaust (Scholastic 1986). Through a combination of luck and determination Inge survived with both of her parents.
Inge was just three on the night of Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass, November 9, 1938) and just seven when she was taken to Terezin. She recounts the growing terror her family experienced as they lost their German citizenship, their home, and finally, their freedom within the walls of Terezin. Against her personal memories, she provides the context of the Nazi’s rise to power in Germany and across Europe. Photographs of Inge, her family, and Terezin bring the story into sharper focus. Poems written by Inge shine light into the dark of the camp and make my heart ache for those who suffered and died.
If you have read Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and want to learn more about the Holocaust, I Am a Star is a good place to start.
I had no idea. I knew tensions ran high during the Civil Rights movement. I knew violence erupted. I had no idea, though, that the government of Mississippi would go to such extreme measures to stop integration.
Rick Bowers traces the rise to power of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission and its secretly terrifying tactics. The Commission was controlled by the most powerful men in the state. It began as a way to spread propaganda in support of maintaining g. It then recruited and maintained a network of spies with code names like Agent X, Agent Y, and Agent Zero. These spies dug up dirt on suspected integration supporters and funnelled information about upcoming freedom rides, sit-ins and voter registration drives back to the Commission. At the height of its power, it functioned as a secret-police force in support of segregation. Really? Here in the United States? It’s hard to believe, but, yes, it did.
As I read about the desperate efforts of the Commission, I became even more impressed with those brave people who continued to fight for Civil Rights. College students invaded Mississippi to teach literacy and help register voters. Clyde Kennard and James Meredith dared to apply to all-white colleges. Fannie Lou Hamer was beaten with a 3-inch-wide leather belt for asking to be served at a cafe marked “whites only.” Medgar Evars was shot down in his front yard for his work with the NAACP. Many others were threatened or imprisoned for daring to change the way things have always been.
I am pushing myself to read more nonfiction. Rick Bowers shows how good books about history can be. Go, find a copy, and READ.
This is history as it should be written. James L. Swanson captures the drama and emotion of the days leading up to and following Lincoln’s assassination at Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1865.
Swanson sets his sights squarely on John Wilkes Booth, the good-looking charismatic actor who could not stand the fact his beloved South had lost the war and an entire way of life based on slavery. I never knew how popular Booth had been as an actor. He was the Robert Pattinson or Taylor Lautner of his day–except I don’t think the two modern actors are plotting murder and the downfall of governments.
Booth had planned and failed in several earlier attempts to kidnap Lincoln, so he was more than ready when the opportunity presented itself. This time, the plan–at least his part of it–came together perfectly as Booth gave the last and most memorable performance of his life.
Things started falling apart during his escape from Washington. He had help along the way–some willing, some reluctant, some coerced. Even at his lowest point, hiding in the woods with a broken leg, no food, and no horse, Booth was eager to read any and every account of the assassination.
Back in Washington, the rumors flew as Edwin Stanton began one of the largest manhunts in history to track down Lincoln’s killer. Even in the days before cell phones and Facebooks, rumors and misinformation spread quickly.
Pick up this book and get swept up in the drama of those weeks. It reads much more like an episode of NCIS or CSI than history. I’m glad I did. Thanks to those of you who read it and recommended it.
Karen Blumenthal writes nonfiction the way it should be written. I just wish my history textbooks in school had been written half as well as Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition (Roaring Book Press 2011). I would have learned a lot more and enjoyed it, too.
