Back of the Bus

Back of the Bus
by Aaron Reynolds, illustrated by Floyd Cooper. 2010. New York: Penguin Group. (9780399250910).

Author Website: http://www.aaron-reynolds.com/

Illustrator Website: http://www.floydcooper.com/

Media: oil paint

Annotation:
The story of Rosa Parks, as seen through the eyes of a young boy on the Montgomery, Alabama bus that fateful day in 1955.

Personal Reaction:
     Aaron Reynolds imagines Rosa Park's 1955 act of civil disobedience on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in his book Back of the Bus. This is the famous story as seen through the eyes of a young African American boy. The nameless boy and his mother witness firsthand Rosa Park's refusal to move from her seat and her subsequent arrest. The boy is nervous but his mother assures him (somewhat ironically) that, "Tomorrow all this'll be forgot". Reynolds  writes in the boy's voice, using vernacular language which I find demeaning and borderline offensive most of the time. (The boy says things like, "I want me a drink real bad".) While there's nothing terrible about the book, there's nothing particularly spectacular about it either. Floyd Cooper's illustrations are nice, but he's done better work (see Joyce Carol Thomas' I Have Heard of the Land or  Pat Sherman's Ben and the Emancipation Proclamation).