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A review by likeboadicea
Revolution by Deborah Wiles
2.0
Revolution is the tip of the iceberg of American history concerning issues of racial equality and, while it's narrative may have dragged for me in certain places, I found it to be an enjoyable and highly informative read. The story follows one Sunny Fairchild, a young girl of 1960s Mississippi, as she grows to identify the struggles of both family and society as awareness is slowly raised and encourages her to question the foundation of her beliefs for a majority of simple everyday life. Her little town is thrown into uproar with the Freedom Summer: the town pool closes, the movie theater is threatened, restaurant tables are removed, and downtown shops close, all before the backdrop of learning how to live with two newly conjoined families living under her roof. We the reader accompany Sunny as she decides for herself what she wants to belief and the actions she will take to stand for those beliefs.
I definitely believe that this book would be great to use in a classroom setting to introduce students, particularly younger adolescents around Sunny's age, not only to racial issues that America has, and still does in some communities, face, but also about the importance of history. I myself only had a foggy, half-formed understanding about events of racial discrimination that have occurred in the Southern states, and it would be simply unacceptable to let these events fall into the forgotten blue of history. This story isn't just about Sunny. It's about the change that was finally brought about in Mississippi after the conclusion of the novel. I found myself more interested in the various groups and racial happenings than I was in the story of Sunny's family struggles. However, I did appreciate how they tied in nicely together at the end with Jo Ellen giving Sunny her locket in a moment of need, and then Sunny returning it to her later (huzzah character growth!).
The multimedia usage of the novel was also very informative and a simple, quick way to get historical information across. It worked very well with the written portion of the novel, and was a technique that I don't really recall ever seeing before but very much so enjoyed. Overall, I think this is a wonderful introductory piece, the first building block in a pyramid, to the broad and often confusing (to youths especially) topic of racial tension and equality.
I definitely believe that this book would be great to use in a classroom setting to introduce students, particularly younger adolescents around Sunny's age, not only to racial issues that America has, and still does in some communities, face, but also about the importance of history. I myself only had a foggy, half-formed understanding about events of racial discrimination that have occurred in the Southern states, and it would be simply unacceptable to let these events fall into the forgotten blue of history. This story isn't just about Sunny. It's about the change that was finally brought about in Mississippi after the conclusion of the novel. I found myself more interested in the various groups and racial happenings than I was in the story of Sunny's family struggles. However, I did appreciate how they tied in nicely together at the end with Jo Ellen giving Sunny her locket in a moment of need, and then Sunny returning it to her later (huzzah character growth!).
The multimedia usage of the novel was also very informative and a simple, quick way to get historical information across. It worked very well with the written portion of the novel, and was a technique that I don't really recall ever seeing before but very much so enjoyed. Overall, I think this is a wonderful introductory piece, the first building block in a pyramid, to the broad and often confusing (to youths especially) topic of racial tension and equality.