Fact Friday: This Promise of Change: one girl's story in the fight for school equality by Jo Ann Allen Boyce and Debbie Levy

Image: Bloomsbury

This Promise of Change: One Girl's Story in the Fight for School Equality by Jo Ann Allen Boyce and Debbie Levy. 320 p. Bloomsbury Children's Books, January, 2019.  9781681198521. (Review of finished purchased copy.)

Fact Friday features This Promise of Change: One Girl's Story in the Fight for School Equality by Jo Ann Allen Boyce and Debbie Levy. After the Brown v. Board of Education decision made school segregation illegal in 1956, schools and communities did not just welcome Black students with open arms. TMS readers, many of you are probably aware of the Little Rock Nine, but do you also know about the Clinton Twelve? This Promise of Change is the verse biography/ memoir of Jo Ann Allen, one of those twelve students who integrated their local high school in Clinton, Tennessee in 1956. The reader learns historical context - the reality of school segregation in the Jim Crow south. The free and formal verse poems are augmented with bits of newspaper headlines and excerpts of legislation. Readers will be stunned by the vile hatred spewed by the crowds of whites determined to prevent desegregation. The courage and composure with which these twelve students comported themselves is admirable. Back matter includes authors' notes, an epilogue, photographs, a timeline, suggestions for further reading and source notes. 

This Promise of Change won the Boston Globe/ Horn Book Award last May. It was named a Kirkus Best Book and won an Sibert Honor in January. It belongs in every collection and truly is a must-read.