Meet the youngest known child to be arrested for a civil rights protest in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963, in this moving picture book that proves you’re never too little to make a difference.
Nine-year-old Audrey Faye Hendricks intended to go places and do things like anybody else.
So when she heard grown-ups talk about wiping out Birmingham’s segregation laws, she spoke up. As she listened to the preacher’s words, smooth as glass, she sat up tall. And when she heard the plan—picket those white stores! March to protest those unfair laws! Fill the jails!—she stepped right up and said, I’ll do it! She was going to j-a-a-il!
Audrey Faye Hendricks was confident and bold and brave as can be, and hers is the remarkable and inspiring story of one child’s role in the Civil Rights Movement.
Cynthia Levinson is the author of nonfiction books for young readers that focus on social justice, including The Youngest Marcher, The People’s Painter, and Fault Lines in the Constitution. Her books have received the Sibert Medal, the Carter G. Woodson Book Award, the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, and numerous other honors. She has two daughters, two sons-in-law, four grandchildren, and two grand-dogs—all of whom are thoroughly splendid. Cynthia and her husband divide their time between Austin and Boston, which, helpfully, rhyme, in case she gets lost.
Vanessa Brantley-Newton is a self-taught artist and has attended both FIT and SVA of New York, where she studied fashion and children’s illustration. Vanessa is the illustrator of A Night Out with Mama by Quvenzhané Wallis, The Youngest Marcher by Cynthia Levinson, Presenting...Tallulah by Tori Spelling, and Early Sunday Morning by Denene Millner, among others. She hopes that when people look at her work, it will make them feel happy in some way, or even reclaim a bit of their childhood.
These age appropriate stories, from picture books to chapter books, explore the struggle for racial equality and the valuable history of social and political movements that occurred in America. Featuring heroes and portraying different aspects of the civil rights movements, each book has an important story to tell and a lesson to be learned. From […]
It seems like Americans are more interested in ever than taking part in their democracy—and kids want in on the action! But how does a child speak up, march, or make a change in this great, big world? These eight books are full of ideas for young activists, telling the stories of kids who took […]
Our social media feeds have been filled with political facts and rants for months. And chances are good that nearly all of us have had pretty serious political conversations with our children—even if they’re still cruising the neighborhood on a trike boasting an “I Brake for Chicken Nuggets” bumper sticker. The thing is, this stuff—the […]
