History Comics: Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin: Civil Rights Heroes illustrates (pun intended) the importance of revisiting the pivotal moments in history and retelling them in the detail and nuance they deserve. Excellent storytelling and artwork. Readers 8 - 108 will love this work and learn something new. I highly recommend this graphic nonfiction as required or supplemental reading for classrooms 4th - 8th grade. It should be in every school and public library.

Rosa Parks is a household name, known for her refusal to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. However, history lessons often skip over her involvement in the Civil Rights movement before and after her infamous act of civil disobedience. Oftentimes, Claudette Colvin, the teenager who was arrested and jailed for the same action, is altogether omitted from American history.

This installation of History Comics is told from the perspective of Colvin. A teenager at the time, her action set off a wave of defiance that would lead to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and further social justice. After being jailed, Colvin was mentored by Parks, who encouraged her involvement with an activist youth group. This graphic nonfiction tells both of their stories with nuance and justice. It even takes time to explore the gender dynamics of the Civil Rights movement, acknowledging that neither Colvin or Parks were contemporaneously given the full credit they deserved within the movement.

Walking the line between truth and age-appropriateness when discussing the civil rights movement in a graphic format is an incredibly thin line to walk, but was masterfully handled in this book. Focusing on the events of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, but touching on the inciting factors and results, Baptiste uses the voice of Claudette Colvin to tell the truth of a story that has been bent by time and narrative. Extremely well done and very important.

Perfect for our LS Library. Excellent drawings and a clearly outlined history of Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin. While Rosa Parks is well known, the story of Claudette Colvin has very much stayed in the background and Baptiste has done a great job highlighting Colvin's part in the bus boycotts, but also how her relegation to the background affected her.

This graphic book will be an easy foray into their history and I look forward to purchasing it for our library.

This entry in the History Comics series is much needed and appreciated. It tells the story of Claudette Colvin, the first actual civil rights bus pioneer. Although this is geared to children, it is a no-holds barred, unvarnished look at the civil rights movement ant and its internal struggles. I think that this is a very important book in the canon of civil rights history. I am pleasantly surprised with how real the book actually gets at times. I believe that this is a book that would have wider appeal to teens and young adults.