04. Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice

Hoose, Phillip. Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010. Kindle file.

Annotation: Before Rosa Parks, a teenager stood up to the injustice of Jim Crow by refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus. Claudette Colvin was an unsung hero of the civil rights era, and her actions helped to unravel the oppressive Jim Crow regime.

Justification for nomination:
Most people know the story of Rosa Parks, though few realize that others stood up to the Jim Crow establishment before her. Claudette Colvin was one who did. Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice is a biography of Claudette Colvin. At the age of 15, this brave girl refused to give up her seat to a white woman on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. This led to her arrest, and her ending up on probation for her actions. She went on to be the primary witness in Browder v. Gayle, a landmark case which began the unwinding of the Jim Crow laws of the south.

This book is everything a great YA work should be. Claudette is an adolescent herself. She is fighting against hundreds of years of oppression and custom. Claudette's personal accounts are used throughout, telling the story of her life directly from her perspective. She is not along for the ride, but is making decisions for herself that impact the course of history. The YA reader will certainly find themselves identifying with her and her plight. Nothing is sugarcoated, demonstrating respect for the adolescent reader. A full understanding is given of just how difficult life was for a black person living under the Jim Crow regime.

The story of Claudette Colvin is one that is intensely emotional. The reader cannot help but feel a deep sense of injustice when viewing the world through her eyes. While Claudette is a hugely inspirational figure, she certainly has her flaws. She is presented as a human being, complete with poor choices. Her pregnancy is neither praised or condemned, but is reported honestly. The emotional impact of a fully fleshed out individual dealing with a deeply troubling situation is one that the reader cannot help but feel personally, a hallmark of great YA literature.

Finally, the biography genre is one that is approachable and enjoyable for a wide cross-section of adolescent readers. Many adolescents who are turned off by fiction will enjoy a historically accurate, but deeply emotional story. This is YA literature at its finest.

Genre: Biography, Autobiography or Memoir