Module 5 - Remember: The Journey to School Integration

Citation: Morrison, T. (2004). Remember: The journey to school integration. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co.

Book Summary:  This book starts off by explaining how different schools were years ago.  Schools were to be separate but equal, but the reality was that the schools, while separate, were anything but equal.  The photographs help tell the story, while the author writes from the perspective of the people on the pictures.  While these are not their actual words, it helps bring the people to life and Morrison's words are probably not far from what they were actually thinking or saying.

My Impressions: I read this book to my third grade students and they loved it.  I love the photographs that the author uses to illustrate what life was like during the time of segregated schools.  The real photographs really helped my students understand what life would have been like.  They find it hard to believe that life was really like that, and seeing the pictures really helped them understand what it would have been like to grow up that way.  I love how the author writes from the point of view of the people in the photographs.  This is a very good book to read to children to help them understand segregation and how it effected children who grew up during that era.   I also love how she provides the background information that explains each picture at the back of the book.

Professional Review: In her introduction, Toni Morrison describes the racial climate in the U. S. in the 1950s— the burgeoning civil rights movement and the impact of Brown v. Board of Education. Morrison reaches out to engage readers in this pictorial essay on the topic of school integration with the brief and thought-provoking words she imagines being spoken by the children, youth, and adults captured in the photographs. The images, spanning the years 1942 to 1989, document segregated and integrated schools and the civil rights movement. A timeline and photo notes at the end of the text give dates and descriptions to help readers correlate these images to the country’s history.

[Review of the book Remember: The journey to school integration, by T. Morrison]. (2010). School Library Monthly, 27(2), 28-28. Retrieved from www.schoollibrarymonthly.com.

Library Uses: This book is a good opportunity for the librarian to talk to children about standing up for what they know is right, even if it goes against what everyone else is saying or doing.  The librarian could lead a discussion on how kids would have felt if they had grown up during the time when schools were segregated and how different their life would have been.  The librarian could also bring in a guest speaker who grew up during the time period of segregated schools to share their experiences.