Plan to read this with the kids. It is informative and honest.

1858 - "It wasn't because slavery was horrible that Lincoln wanted it to end. He wanted to end it to help poor White people find work and make money." (44)
"Then Lincoln made an even bigger declaration: that all enslaved people in Confederate areas would now be free. But you see the problem here? Lincoln's declaration did not free all enslaved people, only those in Confederate areas." (46)

Jefferson Davis is mentioned in the box "To Be Free" on page 48 - link this to VA History/Social Studies.

Conversational helpers "W.E.B. Du Bois (rhymes with voice)" (50)
"He [Du Boise] believed that if Black people got a college education, they would be more like White people....White people would accept them....only one in ten was cut out for learning..." (51) On page 73 we learn that he became an antiracist and argued for "safe spaces" and became the father of "pan-Africanism"

Booker T. "Washington felt Black people should just forget about political equality."

Also mentioned - Tarzan, The Birth of a Nation (and black face), King Kong, Dumbo, Peter Pan, Landy and the Tramp..."classics." (65) I'm curious if the "adult" version talkes at greater depth about the power of stories and if it weighs in on the value of including "classics" in curriculumn. Do the writers take a stand on wheather kids should read "classics" at school?

Harlem Renesance

Read this for my Teaching Social Studies for Justice class. Looking forward to reading the YA and adult version next!

Great resource! Definitely recommend.

Quick read for adults. Clear, concise, and appropriate for young people. This is a great resource for anyone! I would recommend.

LOVED this version! Every person needs to read at least one of the adaptations. Every time I read it my mind is blown over and over. There’s so much of history we just weren’t taught or ideas we weren’t given to consider. I hope we can do better with future generations.

Although the publisher's info indicates this book is for 6- to 10-year-olds, I believe the younger range of that would manage it best if an adult read it aloud to them. My reasoning: The Glossary explains almost 60 terms, but they would be burdensome to look up as you read, and even then, the pronunciation isn't included. Likewise, the Timeline indicates sequence, and duration - but most readers will not be flipping back to it while reading, and even then, it is not in proportion, so some incidents are separated by 200 years and others by 2 years. Adults reading along with children will be able to give the facts additional perspective by inference and interpretation.

Given that an adult will be needed for half the target audience, it's too bad the authors & publisher didn't include a set of questions for personal exploration. The last, brief chapter (4 pages), starting "Dear Reader" *does* ask a few questions, but only in a conversational way, moving right along with the next thought as if nobody really expected the reader to respond.

Every adult reader will spot something that they wish the author had gone into further, or explained more fully, or included - this is a very brief summary, using specific details as illustrations of points, therefore not "complete".

Nevertheless, there are a few basic things in the beginning that seemed to me worth emphasizing that were left out; What labor did enslaved people do in Europe and then in the American colonies? What conditions of the regions or the people's history made it possible for people to be taken and kept?

On page 13, it says, "In 1619, the first ship carrying enslaved African people arrived in the newly colonized America..." but it doesn't give any information about where the enslaved people came from, what forces or thinking or movements made rich Europeans undertake the huge, hateful process of trapping & imprisoning human beings, rather than continuing to exploit the human beings who were already there?

I guess this question seems important to me because the rest of the book is about how White supremacy works to shore-up the early decision to exploit specific people based on their skin color. Will young readers understand that there were already systems of global interaction that made that tactic cost-effective for them?

On page 9, Cherry-Paul mentions that Europeans conquered a bunch of places and enslaved a bunch of people, without regard to their skin color. (They also enslaved people in their own backyards, in fact.) RIGHT THEN I strongly believe the author should have indicated what was going on in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North & South America, that put pressure on capitalists & political leaders (kings, mostly) to either treat people more fairly or justify their mistreatment of people. And what was going on around the world that already had created an imbalance that made the enslavement of huge numbers of people possible and economically feasible.

Apparently the authors didn't think this was important enough to mention, but given that the rest of the book is basically talking about how everything else since then has only continued the same racist exploitation, and because young people often ask "But WHY?" - I think they deserve to hear what started this whole thing. It was *not* just that Gomes Eanes de Zurara wrote a book to justify Prince Henry of Portugal's slave trade.

Other than that missing piece, and an irksome habit of repetitive sentence fragments to make it more casual, informal, and chatty, the whole project seems useful, clear, and brief enough to effectively inspire young people to think more critically about the messages they are still being fed through history books, popular media, and ignorant adults blabbing nonsense at them.

Loved reading this book with my 11 year old. My only critique is that there were a lot of words he didn’t know the meaning of and I think it would have been much harder for him to read and understand on his own if I wasn’t reading with him.

In order to combat racism you have to understand its history and how it has become such a big part of it.

This book gives the kids the background to understand and shows those who have fought along the way.

Very clear and accessible book for 5-8 grades.
A must-read for any human.
Excellent!

What a fantastic way to teach children about the history of racism. The narrative really connects the reader to the material by being personal and informal. All people should have to read this book.

If you’re looking for a great resource for young readers to discuss the history of racism in America, antiracism, and Black Lives Matter, look no farther than Stamped for Kids. This book takes heavy subjects and makes it easy for kids to understand. Highly recommend!