Bookverdict.com

K-Gr 4 Connie likes to shop downtown with her mother. When they feel tired and hot, they stop in at Woolworth's for a cool drink, but stand as they sip their sodas since African Americans aren't allowed to sit at the lunch counter. Weatherford tells the story from the girl's point of view and clearly captures a child's perspective. Connie wants to sit down and have a banana split, but she can't, and she grumb...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

Two new picture books set in the civil rights-, protest-era South: one is romanticized idealism, the other child's-eye-view realism. Johnson's A Sweet Smell of Roses is a poetic evocation of a 1960s freedom march. The young black narrator and her little sister dash out of the house one morning and join a march led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Throughout the day—listening to speeches, marching, enduring harassment from onlookers—they smell roses. Then, singing freedom songs, the two skip home. The pervasive smell of roses is an effective metaphor for the scent of freedom in the air, and Johnson's poetic text is powerful. But in attempting to reflect a univers...Log In or Sign Up to Read More