Rosa's Bus: The Ride to Civil Rights
In an inventive approach, this handsome picture book frames the biography of Rosa Parks with the story of the bus on which she famously refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. Beginning with where the bus was built and first driven, the free-verse narrative and dramatic oil paintings tell the larger story of discrimination in daily life: That’s just the way things were is a frequent refrain, and one double-page view of the bus’ interior shows a Colored sign marking the seats. After Parks’ refusal and arrest, there is the drama of the boycott: Bus #2857 rode down the street / with plenty of empty seats. . . . / They walked for 382 days. A climactic picture shows the bus full again, blacks and whites sitting together. With the final long note about the history and the museum where the bus is on display, kids will connect with the unsentimental, contemporary message: Imagine where it has been / and where we have yet to go. Grades 2-5. --Hazel Rochman