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A review by iffer
Revolution by Deborah Wiles
5.0
This is almost, but not quite a 5-star book for me, but I figured that I would round up, because I think that it would be a really good book for plenty of people to read. Not only is a it a well-done historical fiction book about Freedom Summer in Mississippi, but it's also a good coming-of-age story of a 12-year-old girl determining who she is/who she wants to be, as well as dealing with issues of accepting her stepmother and coming to terms with abandonment by her biological mother.
Let's just get this out of the way. Revolution is a story about Freedom Summer in Mississippi during the Civil Rights movement, and it's told from the perspective of a 12-year-old white girl whose family used to own a plantation during slavery (her uncle still grows cotton with sharecroppers). Maybe this isn't an elephant in the room for other people, but, in the past there has been some askance at best, resentment and anger, at worst, about how successful and critically-acclaimed works about disenfranchised communities seemingly have to be "white enough" (and privleged enough). (Look at the success of The Help and criticism of the film Stella for not including enough about white and Jewish Civil Rights proponents.) My answer to this is that large publishing houses are still dominated by white males, for one thing, and for another, they seem to operate under the assumption (right or wrong) that the people who will buy the most books (for themselves, others or for library/school systems), are middle- and upper-middle class whites. Taking that into account, not every writer can be Walter Dean Myers or Jacqueline Woodson and walk the tenuous line of writing superlative children's fiction about controversial topics and underrepresented groups that rings true in mood and experience, yet is palatable and marketable to large publishing houses. Also, Deborah Wiles is a white woman who spent her summers in Mississippi, so she was writing what she knows, and I've been convinced after reading this book that what she knows is important and should be shared.
Wiles's depiction of all races, all religions (or lack thereof), and scocioeconomics statuses as complex in their feelings and actions during the Civil Rights Movement, and in general, is a breath of fresh air. One of the reasons that I feel that it's possible for people to believe that we live in a "post-race" society is because the "fight," the "revolution" has been oversimplified into good versus evil, so that people can point to the fact that open, violent racism (also depicted in Revolution) is now not socially acceptable whatsoever, and that there aren't things like separate water fountains for "whites" and "coloreds." I feel like the Civil Rights Movement is often portrayed as being a single event, after which everything was changed, and that's just not true; people throughout the United States, and throughout the world, are still fighting for justice and equal rights for myriad groups. Wiles manages to portray both her main character Sunny, and Greenwood MS as going "back to normal" after Freedom Summer, but "changed." Wiles chooses to emphasize the incremental changes in people's hearts and minds, such as through blacks and white sharing everyday activities, rather than choosing to focus on the more confrontational aspects of the Civil Rights Movement, which most are most familiar with, such as boycotts. Likely because it resonates with me, I liked learning about Bob Moses and his vision for enacting change through education and voting rights, his quiet strength and persuasion, as opposed to the bold declarations, rowdy church meetings and charisma of Martin Luther King Jr.
In Revoluation, Wiles communicates that most people, many good people, are merely behaving the way that they do out of fear, but they're still trying to do what's right. She also portrays the spectrum, including, but not limited to, resignation, fear, anger, and defiance, that motivate both blacks and whites to support or change race relations in 1960s Mississippi.
I also appreciated that Wiles touches upon the idea of "tourism activism" or "tourism volunteerism," since many of the Freedom Riders who went to Mississippi in the summer of 1964 were white, college-educated, and from the North. I liked that Wiles didn't merely portray then as heroes swooping in to save a "beleaguered area." They were there to educate, to get to know the community, to demonstrate that integration is not only possible, but preferable (or even "right"), and to build a foundation and establish an infrastructure for continued positive change.
Wiles also does a fantastic job incorporating primary source material (newsreels, journal entries, newspaper excerpts) into Revolution, simultaneously making her case, but also providing readers with the opportunity to react to the original material and make their own conclusions. While I thought that it would be obnoxious, it didn't bother me that Sunny intermittently quotes Bible verses. It's not obtrusive, and it emphasized the roll that religion played in people's decision-making, particularly in the South, and the Civil Rights Movement, while also underscoring that The Bible has an awful lot to say about love and human dignity, not violence and scape-goating.
Although the "lessons" were sometimes stated too obviously for my taste, I forgive this, since it's a children's book.
Let's just get this out of the way. Revolution is a story about Freedom Summer in Mississippi during the Civil Rights movement, and it's told from the perspective of a 12-year-old white girl whose family used to own a plantation during slavery (her uncle still grows cotton with sharecroppers). Maybe this isn't an elephant in the room for other people, but, in the past there has been some askance at best, resentment and anger, at worst, about how successful and critically-acclaimed works about disenfranchised communities seemingly have to be "white enough" (and privleged enough). (Look at the success of The Help and criticism of the film Stella for not including enough about white and Jewish Civil Rights proponents.) My answer to this is that large publishing houses are still dominated by white males, for one thing, and for another, they seem to operate under the assumption (right or wrong) that the people who will buy the most books (for themselves, others or for library/school systems), are middle- and upper-middle class whites. Taking that into account, not every writer can be Walter Dean Myers or Jacqueline Woodson and walk the tenuous line of writing superlative children's fiction about controversial topics and underrepresented groups that rings true in mood and experience, yet is palatable and marketable to large publishing houses. Also, Deborah Wiles is a white woman who spent her summers in Mississippi, so she was writing what she knows, and I've been convinced after reading this book that what she knows is important and should be shared.
Wiles's depiction of all races, all religions (or lack thereof), and scocioeconomics statuses as complex in their feelings and actions during the Civil Rights Movement, and in general, is a breath of fresh air. One of the reasons that I feel that it's possible for people to believe that we live in a "post-race" society is because the "fight," the "revolution" has been oversimplified into good versus evil, so that people can point to the fact that open, violent racism (also depicted in Revolution) is now not socially acceptable whatsoever, and that there aren't things like separate water fountains for "whites" and "coloreds." I feel like the Civil Rights Movement is often portrayed as being a single event, after which everything was changed, and that's just not true; people throughout the United States, and throughout the world, are still fighting for justice and equal rights for myriad groups. Wiles manages to portray both her main character Sunny, and Greenwood MS as going "back to normal" after Freedom Summer, but "changed." Wiles chooses to emphasize the incremental changes in people's hearts and minds, such as through blacks and white sharing everyday activities, rather than choosing to focus on the more confrontational aspects of the Civil Rights Movement, which most are most familiar with, such as boycotts. Likely because it resonates with me, I liked learning about Bob Moses and his vision for enacting change through education and voting rights, his quiet strength and persuasion, as opposed to the bold declarations, rowdy church meetings and charisma of Martin Luther King Jr.
In Revoluation, Wiles communicates that most people, many good people, are merely behaving the way that they do out of fear, but they're still trying to do what's right. She also portrays the spectrum, including, but not limited to, resignation, fear, anger, and defiance, that motivate both blacks and whites to support or change race relations in 1960s Mississippi.
I also appreciated that Wiles touches upon the idea of "tourism activism" or "tourism volunteerism," since many of the Freedom Riders who went to Mississippi in the summer of 1964 were white, college-educated, and from the North. I liked that Wiles didn't merely portray then as heroes swooping in to save a "beleaguered area." They were there to educate, to get to know the community, to demonstrate that integration is not only possible, but preferable (or even "right"), and to build a foundation and establish an infrastructure for continued positive change.
Wiles also does a fantastic job incorporating primary source material (newsreels, journal entries, newspaper excerpts) into Revolution, simultaneously making her case, but also providing readers with the opportunity to react to the original material and make their own conclusions. While I thought that it would be obnoxious, it didn't bother me that Sunny intermittently quotes Bible verses. It's not obtrusive, and it emphasized the roll that religion played in people's decision-making, particularly in the South, and the Civil Rights Movement, while also underscoring that The Bible has an awful lot to say about love and human dignity, not violence and scape-goating.
Although the "lessons" were sometimes stated too obviously for my taste, I forgive this, since it's a children's book.