A Dream of Freedom

We were the first to check this book out at our library, the day after Rosa Parks died. What a lucky find! We homeschool, and this has been the PERFECT book to fully educate our 8 and 11 year old daughters about the Civil Rights Movement. The chapters are short enough for a kid to digest, and yet manage to completely cover the subject at hand, and the language keeps them interested. You won't find a better book on this subject material for juveniles.

In A Dream Of Freedom, Diane McWhorter gives the 9-12 year old reader a concise history of the American civil rights movement between the years 1954-1968. McWhorter covered some of this material in her earlier civil rights chronicle, Carry Me Home which won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction. A Dream of Freedom opens with a rousing foreward by the legendary Rev Fred Shuttlesworth who is one of the central figures in the story that follows. The book focuses on the turbulent period between 1954-1968 when the growing civil rights movement battled institutional segregation, violence and bloodshed. McWhorter's account is both disturbing and inspirational. She is an excellent storyteller with a straightforward and unflinching delivery. She closes with a poignant epilogue and bibliography that encourages further research. This book is well organized and illustrated with over 120 photographs and collages. A Dream of Freedom should be in every school and public library.