Child of the Civil Rights Movement by: Paula Young Shelton & Raul Colon

I thought this book was really neat, especially since it was from the perspective of the child that went through the Civil Rights Movement. She used some of the information that she remembered during that time, and also stories from her other family members. This historical fiction book does a good job portraying famous figures as normal, hardworking people. One thing that is kind of a negative of the book is that it is quite long and wordy. There is obviously a lot of information to cover when writing anything about history, but I think even I was beginning to feel overwhelmed with all of the names, dates, and places

My favorite part about this book was definitely the illustrations. They are all done in really vibrant and rich hues of browns, blues. It looks like there is a grainy texture to the pages, which almost made everything look like it was in 3-D. After being so drawn to the images I was fascinated to learn what technique the illustrator, Raul Colon, used. To get these beautiful images, Colon had to go through many steps, 5 in all. I think that they are so good, they would be able to tell the story, even without the words. The cover of the book is definitely eye catching, so I am glad the story in side is a positive, educational book for students to read and to learn from.