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School Library Journal
Reviewed on August 1, 2010
Gr 7-10 This richly documented, historically contextualized account traces the origin and evolution of the Ku Klux Klan from a small mischievous social club into a powerful, destructive organization. With compelling clarity, anecdotal detail, and insight, Bartoletti presents the complex era of Reconstruction, 1865-1877, that gave rise to the KKK. After the Civil War, the defeated South was a simmering cauldron of political, economic, and social instability. As the federal government struggled to provide law and order and to protect the rights of freed slaves,...Log In or Sign Up to Read More
Horn Book Magazine
Reviewed on September 1, 2010
As in Hitler Youth (rev. 5/05), Bartoletti tackles a tough, grim subject with firmness and sensitivity. Together the title and subtitle are somewhat misleading, however. Once past the checkered origin of the Klan and its brushfire "bogeyman" spread, events Bartoletti makes understandable, the narrative focuses on the victims, not their tormentors. No success goes unpunished. Independent farmer Samuel Tutson sees his wife whipped and raped; crippled circuit preacher Elias H...Log In or Sign Up to Read More
Horn Book Guide
Starred Review on January 1, 2010
Bartoletti tackles a tough, grim subject with firmness and sensitivity. Once past the origin of the Klan and its brushfire spread, the na...Log In or Sign Up to Read More
Junior Library Guild
Reviewed on September 1, 2010
Susan Campbell Bartoletti has written not just an early history of the Ku Klux Klan, but an early history of race relations in America. Readers will be interested to see how the Klan’s formation and actions fit within the context of larger (and al...Log In or Sign Up to Read More