A review by heremireadz
Revolution by Deborah Wiles

4.0

I learned a lot about this time period in history that I thought I already knew about. Civil rights, especially MLK Jr, is covered fairly thoroughly in school, but I was not aware of Freedom Summer, where volunteers came to Mississippi to encourage blacks to register. This book, with the abundant primary sources, made this historical period come alive and gave me a more rich understanding of the incredible hatred whites had for blacks just 40 years ago. The fact that doctors could have turned their heads to a 12 year old on his death bed just because he was black and they were not to treat blacks- this had me reeling. It is unconscionable, and yet these seeds of bitterness are still growing fruit today. I liked the multiple perspectives and the primary sources, both images and texts, but I found the narrative to have an over abundance of minor characters which were difficult to track. Students might have difficulty with the jumps between different types of text and narration.