A review by nerfherder86
Revolution by Deborah Wiles

5.0

I gulped this book down, but it brought me to tears twice and I had to just slow down and savor it. See my post on the first book in the trilogy [b:Countdown by Deborah Wiles] for why I like this "documentary novel" style so much. This second book connects nicely to the first with a crossover character, Jo Ellen, the big sister from book one who in this book is one of the Freedom Summer volunteers. But mostly it is another girl's story, another family, in the South instead of up north, along with an African American boy, Raymond, and it gets at the heart of race relations in 1964 and the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Very moving, very well written. Again, many terrific pages of photographs and quotes and lyrics for context, and biographies this time include Muhammed Ali, SNCC leader Bob Moses, and two incredible women I wish I'd known more about but am glad to meet in this book: Polly Spiegel Cowan and Dorothy Height. I'd read a fair bit about the civil rights era but hadn't heard of the Wednesday Women and I feel ashamed that I hadn't. Or hadn't remembered, anyway. Excellent excellent book.