Bookverdict.com

K-Gr 3 This quiet, gentle story pays tribute to the many unnamed children who participated in the African-American struggle for civil rights. It opens: "After a night of soft rain there is a sweet smell of roses as my sister, Minnie, and I slip past Mama's door and out of the house down Charlotte Street." They head toward the curb market where folks, mostly adults, are gathering to listen to and march with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Large, powerful ...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 universal e...Log In or Sign Up to Read More