Fact Friday: Defiant: Growing Up in the Jim Crow South by Wade Hudson

Image: Penguin Random House

Defiant: Growing Up in the Jim Crow South by Wade Hudson. 272 p. Crown Books/ Random House Children's Books, October, 2021. 9780593126356. (Review of finished purchased copy.)

Happy Friday TMS! We made it! February break starts in a few short hours. I hope you have your reading planned. I do. Fact Friday features Defiant: Growing Up in the Jim Crow South by Wade Hudson. Mr. Hudson is author of more than thirty books and is co-founder, along with his wife, Cheryl Willis Hudson, of Just Us Books. His conversational memoir begins with him contemplating the prison cell he was placed in after his arrest as a college student. He was a vocal activist on campus and he and others were charged with plotting murder. The next chapter rewinds to the author's childhood, growing up in a large family in a small town, where folks looked out for one another, but Black folks couldn't try on clothes in the department store. He grew up loving school and baseball and the church. 

Back matter contains notes and a time line to help young readers understand the history of Civil Rights in the U.S. Defiant is a first-purchase for all kinds of libraries-compelling and important.