Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 09/01/2005 Gr 3-5-Rosa Parks's personal story moves quickly into a summary of the Civil Rights movement in this striking picture book. Parks is introduced in idealized terms. She cares for her ill mother and is married to "one of the best barbers in the county." Sewing in an alterations department, "Rosa Parks was the best seamstress. Her needle and thread flew through her hands like the gold spinning from Rumpelstiltskin's loom." Soon the story moves to her famous refusal to give up her seat on the bus, but readers lose sight of her as she waits to be arrested. Giovanni turns to explaining the response of the Women's Political Caucus, which led to the bus boycott in Montgomery. A few events of the movement are interjected-the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the aftermath and reactions to the murder of Emmett Till, the role of Martin Luther King, Jr., as spokesperson. Collier's watercolor and collage scenes are deeply hued and luminous, incorporating abstract and surreal elements along with the realistic figures. Set on colored pages, these illustrations include an effective double foldout page with the crowd of successful walkers facing a courthouse representing the 1956 Supreme Court verdict against segregation on the buses. Many readers will wonder how it all went for Parks after her arrest, and there are no added notes. Purposeful in its telling, this is a handsome and thought-provoking introduction to these watershed acts of civil disobedience.-Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information. - Copyright 2005 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 11/01/2005 As Rosa Parks has justifiably come to be regarded not only as a catalyst but an icon of the civil rights movement, the story of her refusal to yield her seat to a white bus rider and that act’s direct connection with the Montgomery bus boycott have taken on an aura of heroic legend. Giovanni’s account offers an as-it-happens look at events that’s particularly good at bringing the details of the experience to life. The prose, though, has a particularly hagiographic ring, with Mrs. Parks demonstrating near-magical skills as a seamstress (“The needle and thread flew through her hands like the gold spinning from Rumpelstiltskin’s loom”), and it occasionally incorporates overblown prose (“They decided they would stand under the umbrella of courage Rosa Parks had offered, keeping off the rains of fear and self disgust”). Collier employs quasi-religious imagery in his arresting watercolor-and-collage illustrations. On the title page, Parks descends the bus steps with a hand raised as in benediction, the crown of her head is haloed in gold at the moment of her confrontation with the bus driver and again on the final spread, in which she bows her head with eyes closed while children’s hands are raised toward her in open palmed gestures of blessing. Collier provides a visual climax, in the form of a foldout spread, of the bus boycott that coincides with the 1956 Supreme Court ruling against segregation on buses, but the poignancy of the moment is undercut by the clumsy “open here” directives that instruct viewers on how to open the page. While a more down-to-earth treatment and clarity would make this more informative, this title will strike the appropriate adulatory tone for a commemorative observance. - Copyright 2005 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

Booklist - 06/01/2005 *Starred Review* Far from the cliche of Rosa Parks as the tired little seamstress, this beautiful picture-book biography shows her as a strong woman, happy at home and at work, and politically aware (not tired from work, but tired of . . . eating at separate lunch counters and learning at separate schools). Her refusal to give up her seat on a bus inspires her friend Jo Ann Robinson, president of the Women's Political Council, and the 25 council members to make posters calling for the bus boycott, and they organize a mass meeting where the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. speaks for them. Paired very effectively with Giovanni's passionate, direct words, Collier's large watercolor-and-collage illustrations depict Parks as an inspiring force that radiates golden light, and also as part of a dynamic activist community. In the unforgettable close-up that was used for the cover, Parks sits quietly waiting for the police as a white bus driver demands that she give up her seat. In contrast, the final picture opens out to four pages showing women, men, and children marching for equal rights at the bus boycott and in the years of struggle yet to come. The history comes clear in the astonishing combination of the personal and the political. - Copyright 2005 Booklist.