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skrajewski's review
5.0
It's the summer of 1964, and Sunny lives in Greenwood, Mississippi. Family, friends, and neighbors keep telling her "invaders" and "agitators" are coming from the North, and she's worried. What will this mean for her? Sunny already feels like her life is tough enough as it is. Her father remarried, and now his new wife Annabelle and her two children are living with them. Sunny does, however, connect with her new step-brother Gillette. One night, they even sneak into the local pool to go swimming, only to find they are not alone. Raymond Bullis, a young Black boy about their age, is there to swim too. Soon, Sunny, Gillette, and Raymond find themselves always running into one another. What follows are various events based on what really happened during Freedom Summer.
Just like in Countdown, real images are woven in, making the story that much more real for the reader. Revolution meant so much more to me though. I felt like I was right there with Sunny the whole time, and I was proud of Jo Ellen's participation in the movement. This book will give readers a small, but vivid, look into what many people went through during Freedom Summer in Mississippi. I look forward to incorporating excerpts and images from this book within my curriculum.
Just like in Countdown, real images are woven in, making the story that much more real for the reader. Revolution meant so much more to me though. I felt like I was right there with Sunny the whole time, and I was proud of Jo Ellen's participation in the movement. This book will give readers a small, but vivid, look into what many people went through during Freedom Summer in Mississippi. I look forward to incorporating excerpts and images from this book within my curriculum.
junkyardigan's review
5.0
I loved this because I love historical fiction, but this was also fun. I usually think of old fashioned people as stiff and boring. This book really showed how they were actual people who lived and loved. This story isn’t one I usually find in books, and I actually never knew that this happened. I knew some other things but not the whole story.
arguhlincozzi's review
5.0
Amazing book, and does a wonderful job with the characters and tense subject matter. Once again, the documentary style pieces of information interspersed throughout the chapters lend another dimension to the world you're in.
annieliz's review
5.0
I loved everything about this book. The characters, their voices, the setting, the non-fiction excerpts, the photos - everything. I think Sunny is a very believable character from this time-period. I can't wait to see who we meet in the third book. Deborah Wiles, you are amazing.
melodyriggs's review
5.0
Really really liked the way this book approached Freedom Summer with both facts and a fictional story. The sometimes changing points of view were easy to follow. The photographs, news articles, and other historical artifacts interspersed between the chapters were well-chosen. This is a sequel to Countdown (her book about the Cuban Missile Crisis), but only one character from Countdown appears in this book and she doesn't play a major role, so you'd be okay to skip Countdown and just read Revolution. Hopefully I can encourage my students to read this.
libby_merk's review
2.0
You know, I absolutely loved Countdown when I read it. Revolution was originally introduced to me through a school club, and I was incredibly eager to read it. But when I started, I was incredibly disappointed.
I don't know what it was. What made Countdown so appealing and wonderful to me that Revolution didn't have? Either way, I couldn't finish. It was so utterly boring to me. Maybe I should try it again when I'm a bit older. Maybe my review will change. But not any time soon.
I don't know what it was. What made Countdown so appealing and wonderful to me that Revolution didn't have? Either way, I couldn't finish. It was so utterly boring to me. Maybe I should try it again when I'm a bit older. Maybe my review will change. But not any time soon.
squeakadillo's review against another edition
5.0
I listened to the bulk of Revolution on a grueling, ten hour drive from southern Maine back to my home on Maryland's Eastern Shore. I finally crossed the Delaware Memorial Bridge and turned onto Delaware Route 1 just as the sun was setting, and the loblolly pines and marsh grass were bathed in warm, amber light. Everything felt suddenly easier, and more beautiful. "Oh man," I told my daughter. "It is so good to be back on the Eastern Shore."
That feeling - that fierce pride in one's home - is a thread that runs throughout Wiles' novel, the second book in her Sixties Trilogy. It's a feeling that unites all of the stakeholders in the turbulent summer of 1964 in Greenwood, Mississippi - "Freedom Summer" - when "invaders" from outside Mississippi mount a massive black voter registration campaign throughout the state.
As in Countdown, the reader views this particular historical moment through the eyes of children. Sunny Fairchild is a twelve-year-old white girl with a fierce love for her town - its swimming pool, its movie theatre, its library, and even its dusty courthouse. She's resistant to change, both in the town and in her own family, which has recently been invaded by a stepmother and two step-siblings.
Raymond, as a "colored" boy is, of course, barred from all of Sunny's favorite experiences, and his keen awareness of this injustice sets the plot in motion. He sneaks into the swimming pool at night on the same night that Sunny and her stepbrother have decided to go for a forbidden late-night swim. The children literally collide, and from that point forward, their paths are intertwined with one another, along with the larger stories of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), the Ku Klux Klan, and everyone else with a stake in the racial integration of the town and the state.
In her "documentary novels," Deborah Wiles begins each chapter with primary sources from the time period, including speeches, song lyrics, political slogans, and pamphlets. In the print version of the book, these take the form of a sort of collage. In the audiobook, they are presented as a sound collage, performed by a full cast. The execution is magnificent and the effect is powerful. It does, however, make me hesitant to comment on the Newbery chances of this book, because so much of my reaction to it stems from having experienced it as an audiobook. I know that Revolution affected me more powerfully than Countdown, which I read in print, and I wonder how much of that can be traced to the format.
With that caveat, I can say, with confidence, that Wiles has achieved distinction in every category mentioned in the Newbery criteria. The setting is brilliantly realized, the characters (both major and minor) are complex and vivid, and the thematic elements are handled with deftness and subtlety. Prose style is always more difficult for me to discern when I'm listening to a book, but it seemed elegant and fluid. I would love to add it to our Mock Newbery roster this year, so I can read the print edition and form a more educated opinion.
That feeling - that fierce pride in one's home - is a thread that runs throughout Wiles' novel, the second book in her Sixties Trilogy. It's a feeling that unites all of the stakeholders in the turbulent summer of 1964 in Greenwood, Mississippi - "Freedom Summer" - when "invaders" from outside Mississippi mount a massive black voter registration campaign throughout the state.
As in Countdown, the reader views this particular historical moment through the eyes of children. Sunny Fairchild is a twelve-year-old white girl with a fierce love for her town - its swimming pool, its movie theatre, its library, and even its dusty courthouse. She's resistant to change, both in the town and in her own family, which has recently been invaded by a stepmother and two step-siblings.
Raymond, as a "colored" boy is, of course, barred from all of Sunny's favorite experiences, and his keen awareness of this injustice sets the plot in motion. He sneaks into the swimming pool at night on the same night that Sunny and her stepbrother have decided to go for a forbidden late-night swim. The children literally collide, and from that point forward, their paths are intertwined with one another, along with the larger stories of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), the Ku Klux Klan, and everyone else with a stake in the racial integration of the town and the state.
In her "documentary novels," Deborah Wiles begins each chapter with primary sources from the time period, including speeches, song lyrics, political slogans, and pamphlets. In the print version of the book, these take the form of a sort of collage. In the audiobook, they are presented as a sound collage, performed by a full cast. The execution is magnificent and the effect is powerful. It does, however, make me hesitant to comment on the Newbery chances of this book, because so much of my reaction to it stems from having experienced it as an audiobook. I know that Revolution affected me more powerfully than Countdown, which I read in print, and I wonder how much of that can be traced to the format.
With that caveat, I can say, with confidence, that Wiles has achieved distinction in every category mentioned in the Newbery criteria. The setting is brilliantly realized, the characters (both major and minor) are complex and vivid, and the thematic elements are handled with deftness and subtlety. Prose style is always more difficult for me to discern when I'm listening to a book, but it seemed elegant and fluid. I would love to add it to our Mock Newbery roster this year, so I can read the print edition and form a more educated opinion.
evamadera1's review
3.0
I had higher expectations for this book than the book was capable of meeting. I love both history and historical fiction and thought the concept for this book, the combination of primary source documents and photographs with a fictional narrative would be amazing. The combination worked but the primary protagonist grated on my nerves. I honestly could never figure her out. Wiles left too many pieces missing for this book to rank higher than average in my opinion.
cosbrarian's review
4.0
I adored Countdown, so I was very excited to read the next in Wiles' 60s Trilogy, this one focusing on the Civil Rights era, specifically on "Freedom Summer" in 1964, when Greenwood Mississippi was visited by civil rights volunteers educating black residents on their voters rights - a precursor to the eventual Voting Rights Act.
I only have a few quibbles with this book: 1. IT WAS GIANT, so much so I'm afraid some young people might be put off or intimidated by it. 2. Some of the transitions between narrators were fuzzy in the beginning. There were 4-5 narratives being told, after all: Sunny, Ray, the visual stories told with actual photographs and quotes from the movement, and even a little bit of Gillette's story. This got confusing, and for a younger reader could be particularly frustrating. Lastly 3. I would have liked to spend more time with Raymond's story and less with Sunny's. Both were well-done and well-told, but the stories of Greenwood's black citizens are the more compelling in this setting. Ray's character does need to be shrouded in a little bit of mystery to move Sunny's story forward, so it worked well in that regard, and the secondary characters of all races and ages were multifaceted and masterfully drawn.
That being said, the visual components of Wiles' story did compensate for where Ray's story fell short. The photos she provides of the volunteer workers, of Greenwood's African-American families coming out to register to vote in fear of extremely dangerous consequences - this is all laid out for readers through some incredible photographs, paired will with quotes from spirituals, correspondence, and news of the day. She also sprinkles in some chapters that are documents of people and events that contributed to the development of the Voters Rights Act, and usually they are placed before chapters where our fictional characters will interact with these people and events later. Her research is masterful - does anyone give an award for that?
Reading the book over the course of this year was really heart-rending, with states trying to put back the very restrictions that the Voters' Rights act set out to knock down. The book does not shy away from the violence that shattered the country - not only in drawing in true stories like Emmett Till's, but in actually affecting her characters. Same for the language - she doesn't shy away from showing the hateful language used against blacks who simply wanted a voice in their community. (She doesn't over-use it but it's true - the N word is used, at a very key moment in the story. I hope it doesn't cause libraries to reconsider its placement in the children's room). Again, what a powerful read at time when violence against black families is once again making headlines.
Wiles timing was impeccable for this book, and I hope that its length and depth don't scare away the future generations who need to know this story.
I only have a few quibbles with this book: 1. IT WAS GIANT, so much so I'm afraid some young people might be put off or intimidated by it. 2. Some of the transitions between narrators were fuzzy in the beginning. There were 4-5 narratives being told, after all: Sunny, Ray, the visual stories told with actual photographs and quotes from the movement, and even a little bit of Gillette's story. This got confusing, and for a younger reader could be particularly frustrating. Lastly 3. I would have liked to spend more time with Raymond's story and less with Sunny's. Both were well-done and well-told, but the stories of Greenwood's black citizens are the more compelling in this setting. Ray's character does need to be shrouded in a little bit of mystery to move Sunny's story forward, so it worked well in that regard, and the secondary characters of all races and ages were multifaceted and masterfully drawn.
That being said, the visual components of Wiles' story did compensate for where Ray's story fell short. The photos she provides of the volunteer workers, of Greenwood's African-American families coming out to register to vote in fear of extremely dangerous consequences - this is all laid out for readers through some incredible photographs, paired will with quotes from spirituals, correspondence, and news of the day. She also sprinkles in some chapters that are documents of people and events that contributed to the development of the Voters Rights Act, and usually they are placed before chapters where our fictional characters will interact with these people and events later. Her research is masterful - does anyone give an award for that?
Reading the book over the course of this year was really heart-rending, with states trying to put back the very restrictions that the Voters' Rights act set out to knock down. The book does not shy away from the violence that shattered the country - not only in drawing in true stories like Emmett Till's, but in actually affecting her characters. Same for the language - she doesn't shy away from showing the hateful language used against blacks who simply wanted a voice in their community. (She doesn't over-use it but it's true - the N word is used, at a very key moment in the story. I hope it doesn't cause libraries to reconsider its placement in the children's room). Again, what a powerful read at time when violence against black families is once again making headlines.
Wiles timing was impeccable for this book, and I hope that its length and depth don't scare away the future generations who need to know this story.