Helen+Yamato



__Nonfiction__ Adler, David A (1993). **A Picture Book of Rosa Parks.** Holiday House, Inc. 27 pages. Tempe Public Library. This book is a biography about Rosa Parks’ life. The book starts from when she was a child and talks about her family and her childhood. The book briefly talks about the KKK and how that affected her. The books also talks about her education and how the education system was very unfair to African American children because of the Jim Crow laws. It then talks about her life as an adult and how her refusing to give up her seat on the bus led to the Bus Boycott, which eventually led to the end of segregation on the public buses. It also talks about her role in NAACP. Since this book is a picture book, I think that this would be helpful to use to address the ELA standard 3.RL.7 “Explain how specific aspects of a text’s illustrations contribute to what is conveyed by the words in a story.” We can talk about how the pictures help us paint a better picture in our head about the events in Rosa Park’s life and how they bring the words to life.
 * Topic: Civil Rights**

Bridges, Ruby (2009). **Ruby Bridges Goes to School: My True Story.** Cartwheel Books. 32 pages. Tempe Public Library This book is an autobiography written by Ruby Bridges to give a first hand account of what she went through as the first black student in an all white school and gives her perspectives on what happened as she navigated through all of the struggles and obstacles of dealing with racism in her community and how that affected her education. As I stated earlier, this book is an autobiography and I feel as though this book could be used in an autobiography study as well as an introduction into having the students create their own autobiography. While the students clearly have not had as many life experiences as Ruby Bridges had because of the time period and the issues going on in that time and now, we can still study the autobiography to find what elements make up an autobiography and use those elements to create their own.

Coles, Robert (1995). **The Story of Ruby Bridges.** Scholastic Inc. 25 pages. Tempe Public Library. This book tells the story of Ruby Bridges, as stated in the title, about her experiences being the first black child to attend an all-white elementary school, William Frantz Elementary School, in New Orleans, Louisiana after the Brown vs. Board of Education court case. It talks about how she had to encounter a large crowd of angry white people outside of the school everyday and how she had to be escorted into school everyday by federal marshals to prevent people from hurting her. She was also the only person in the school since everyone else was opposed to integration of students in schools. She was all alone every day with just her teacher, Miss Hurley. This book I believe would be a great way for students to be able to read about segregation and the effects that it had on African Americans and I believe that it would help to be able to see it from the perspective of the person who went through it and experienced it first hand. I think it is interesting for them to be able to see how different education was back then than it is now, because they may not even think about how everyone is able to attend the same school and there are no restrictions based on the color of their skin. And since this story uses a lot of pieces of information that describes how Ruby was feeling or what she was thinking, I think that it could be used to help address the ELA standard “Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.”

Greene, Carol (1990). **Jackie Robinson: Baseball’s First Black Major-Leaguer.** Children’s Press, Inc. 47 pages. Tempe Public Library. This book is a biography about Jackie Robinson. It talks about his childhood and how sports were a huge part of his life. He eventually won a scholarship to UCLA and took part in four different sports, like he had in high school. UCLA is where he met his future wife Rachel Isum. He then quit college to help out his mother and joined the army and dealt with a lot of segregation because he wanted to take part in different army sports teams but was not able to because of the color of his skin. Once he got out of the army, Jackie joined the Kansas City Monarchs, a baseball team in the Negro league so he could earn money to marry Rachel. One day, he got a call from the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey. Rickey wanted to make Jackie Robinson the first African American player in major league baseball. Then the rest of book talks about his experiences in the major league and what he had to deal with because of his race. It also talks about how much of an impact that he had on the sport of baseball as well as Civil Rights. This book is broken down into different chapters, based on the different major events in his life and each chapter is written in different sections so I think that this book could be used to address the ELA standard 3.RL.5 which states “Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text, using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza; describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections. I think that this would also be a good way to talk about sequencing since the story talks about events in his life in the order in which it happened.

King, Jr., Dr. Martin Luther (1997). **I Have A Dream.** Scholastic Press. 40 pages. Tempe Public Library. This book is book that has Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s whole “I Have A Dream” speech written out and also includes pictures. I think that this book would be great for the students because a lot of the books that I have chosen for this topic has to do with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and all of the books talk about his I Have A Dream speech and it would be nice for them to be able to read the whole speech. I will also try to find a video of the whole speech so that the students will be able to hear his speech after we have read the book and see the speech come to life. This book I feel would be a great way to incorporate the ELA standard, 3.RL.7 “Explain how specific aspects of a text’s illustrations contribute to what is conveyed by the words in a story (e.g., create mood, emphasize aspects of a character or setting.)” This book has so many great illustrations that go along with his speech and create such a great mental picture as you are reading it that this book would be a great way to incorporate that ELA standard into the social studies lesson.

Murray, Peter (1999). **Dreams: The Story of Martin Luther King, Jr.** The Child’s World, Inc. 32 pages. Tempe Public Library. This book is a biography that talks about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It starts from when he was a child and the Jim Crow Laws that were in effect. It talks about experiences he had as a child as well as an adult. For example, when he was a child, he went with his father downtown to the shoe store and he and his father sat down in the front row of seats and the shoe salesman asked them to move because the seats were for “whites only.” His father refused to move and the salesman didn’t help them unless they moved to the back rows. His father stood up and left the store because he did not want to do business with anyone who did not treat him fairly and was not afraid to stand up for what’s right. This book goes into a lot of detail about his life from childhood up until his death and how much of an impact he had on the Civil Rights Movement. Like I said before, since so many of these books that I have chosen on this topic have to do with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., this could be a good way of getting the ELA standard 3.RL.9 “Compare and contrast the themes, settings, and plots of stories written by the same author about the same or similar characters (.g., in books from a series.)” While these books are not written by the same author, it will allow use to be able to compare and contrast looking at how the different authors wrote about the same person in different ways and how they conveyed the life events of Martin Luther King.

Rappaport, Doreen (2001). **Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.** Hyperion Books for Children. 30 pages. Tempe Public Library. This book is another biography written about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. about his life as a child and how he became a minister because of his father and the role that he played in fighting segregation in the south as well as how he then fought for many other people around the world and for equal rights in a way that was not violent, which was driven by his beliefs as a minister. This book also talks about Rosa Parks and the walk that came about it. It also talks about how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. earned a Nobel Peace Prize as well as how he died and the impact that he had on people back then as well as today. This biography is not quite as detailed as the biography __Dreams: The Story of Martin Luther King, Jr.__ but is great at putting together the important events in his life and the impact that he had on people and I think that the way that the author worded the story is very impactful. I think that this book would be very useful in teaching the students about word choice and how it can affect the way a story is read and how it impacts the reader.

Turner, Ann. (2001). **Abe Lincoln Remembers.** Harper Collins Publishers, Inc. 26 pages. Tempe Public Library. This book is about Abraham Lincoln and his life and the impact that he had on slavery. It starts from his childhood and then goes into how he became president and the fight between the North and the South. While this book doesn’t necessarily take place in the same time frame as all of the other books, it is a good book that will help provide the students with a background on equal rights and how segregation came about and how far back it started. I think that since all of these nonfiction stories all biographies, it would be a great way to introduce writing biographies and autobiographies. We can talk about how in biographies and autobiographies we need to incorporate the major events in a person’s life and that it is written in a sequence. We can also talk about the differences between a biography and autobiography, including point of view and things like that.

__Fiction__ Reynolds, Aaron (2010). **Back of the Bus.** Philomel Books. 30 pages. Tempe Public Library. This book is about a young boy African American boy is riding the back of the bus with his mother in Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955 and is on the same bus that Rosa Parks is on when she refuses to get up from her seat. He has a marble that he keeps playing with and when he lays it in the grooves in the aisle on the floor of the bus, it rolls towards the front of the bus and it is caught by Rosa Parks. She then puts it back on the floor and it rolls back to him and his mother tells him not to play with the marble anymore. Eventually, the bus comes to a stop and many people get on the bus and the bus driver tells the black people to move to the back of the bus. The boy notices that the bus isn’t moving and he asks his mother why and his mother tells him to be quiet. He then hears the bus driver say that he is going to call the police. Since the bus still isn’t moving, the boy plays with his marble again, but this time on his seat and his mother tells him to the put the marble away. He then hears people whispering about someone who is sitting at the front of the bus and he sees that Rosa Parks is sitting up at the front and isn’t moving. She then gets arrested by a policeman because she refuses to give up her seat. His mother then says to herself that Rosa Parks is stirring up trouble. The boy then asks his mother if they are in trouble and she says that they aren’t and that by tomorrow, everyone will have forgotten that this ever happened. But the boy has a feeling that it won’t be. The boy then gets his marble from his pocket and holds it up to the light and he thinks that the marble is smiling because it is shining all brown and golden in the sunlight because it doesn’t have to hide anymore. I think that this book would be a great way to incorporate the ELA standard 3.RL.1 “Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.” Students can be asked to answer questions about things that happen throughout the story to make sure that they comprehend the story and what is going on throughout the story.

Woodson, Jacqueline (2001). **The Other Side.** G.P. Putnam’s Sons. 27 pages. Tempe Public Library. This book is about an African American girl named Clover who lives in a town in which segregation is very prominent. She lives on one side of the fence that divides the town. She notices that there is a white girl named Annie that sits on the fence by herself every day. She also notices her when she is in town with her mom. One day, Clover decides that she wants to go over and talk to Annie and they become friends and sit on the fence together because both of their parents told them that they shouldn’t cross the fence but they never said anything about sitting on the fence. At the end of the story, Annie says that she believes that someday somebody is going to come and knock the fence down and Clover agrees that someday it will happen, showing that they know that segregation will end someday in the future. I think that this book can be used to address the ELA standard 3.RL.3 “Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of words. This story provides rich content that would allow students to try and find the character traits of the main character Clover because it includes her feelings, her actions, her sayings, and her thoughts and those are all things that are used to help find character traits.