claudette colvin twice toward justice by phillip hoose

The book was the most honored title for young people that year, bringing home one of the most coveted of prizes in children’s literature, the Newbery Honor. The contributions of the teenager Claudette Colvin to the Civil Rights Movement were overlooked until Phil wrote the National Book Award-winning Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (2010). The book’s conclusion, “What do you think that kid should do?” leaves the decision of “to squish or not to squish” in the hands of readers and has spawned thousands of classroom discussions, essays, and artwork. The book has sold over a million copies and has been translated into 10 languages. First composed as a song, Hey, Little Ant (1996) brings attention to the often overlooked and frequently squished ant. Phil Hoose’s first children’s book was a picture book that he co-wrote with his then nine-year-old daughter Hannah Hoose. Historic figures like Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks play important roles, but center stage belongs to the brave, bookish girl whose two acts of courage were to affect the course of American history.When author Phillip Hoose was awarded the Katahdin Award for lifetime achievement by the Maine Library Association, the committee stated that his “books for children, young adults, and adults have brought the under-noticed and overlooked to stunning clarity and inclusion with the power of his storytelling.”

Based on extensive interviews with Claudette Colvin and many others, Phillip Hoose presents the first in-depth account of a major, yet little-known, civil rights figure whose story provides a fresh perspective on the Montgomery bus protest of 1955-56. Undaunted, she put her life in danger a year later when she dared to challenge segregation yet again - as one of four plaintiffs in the landmark busing case Browder v. But instead of being celebrated, as Rosa Parks would be when she took the same stand nine months later, Claudette found herself shunned by many of her classmates and dismissed as an unfit role model by the black leaders of Montgomery.

Shouting 'It's my constitutional right ' as police dragged her off to jail, Claudette Colvin decided she'd had enough of the Jim Crow segregation laws that had angered and puzzled her since she was a young child.

On March 2, 1955, a slim, bespectacled teenager refused to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

Claudette colvin twice toward justice by phillip hoose