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Mar 29, 2010

Erin rated it:

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice is appropriate for children in grades 6 and up. In 2009 it won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, was named a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, and a Cybils Award Nominee for Middle Grade/Young Adult Non-Fiction. In 2010, it a received a Sibert Honor and Newbery Honor Award, was listed as an ALA Notable Children’s Book for Older Readers, and an ALA Best Book for Young Adults.

Claudette Colvin, at the age of 15, More...

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May 11, 2010

Sunday rated it:

This is a beautiful book about the struggles of Claudette Colvin- not only in segregationist Montgomery, Alabama where her refusal to give her bus seat up to a white woman sparked the bigger bus boycott movement, but also in her own community where she was shunned (by many of the boycott leaders as well) for being unmarried and pregnant, shunned for giving birth to a fair skinned baby (although the father was black). Despite all of this, she still agreed to testify in the Browder vs. Gayle case More...

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Oct 28, 2008

Sherrie rated it:

This young adult nonfiction title offers a look at an often overlooked figure in the civil rights movement. Almost a year before Rosa Parks famously refused to move to the back of a Montgomery bus, 15 year old Claudette Colvin was the first person to be arrested for that civil disobedience. She faced a civil trial and ridicule from her peers, but local activists felt that she wasn't the right "face" for the movement and she was generally forgotten in history. This book offers an in More...

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Oct 11, 2010

Erica - rated it:

A moving and fascinating biography about Claudette Colvin, a woman whose name has been overshadowed by Rosa Parks in the Civil Rights Movement.

In the mid-1950s Claudette refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama for a white passenger and was arrested. She was arrested and dragged by her wrists and ankles off the of the bus by the police.

She was 15 years old and lived in the lower class neighborhood of town. Because she was from a lower-class neighborhood and was an unwed preg More...

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Jan 11, 2012

Ann rated it:

I loved this book about a teenager during the Civil Rights movement. So much of history was lived vividly by young people, but because the young people were rarely the figureheads or public faces of various movements their stories are lost.

But since a review that says "I loved it!" is sort of boring, I will talk about the bits that I didn't love. I have to say that I occasionally found Claudette to be whiny. There is an undertone to the entire book that seems offended and u More...

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Dec 12, 2011

Carla rated it:

This book has been nominated for several awards, including a Newberry Honor and National Book Award, and rightfully so. It isn't a book you will want to snuggle up with but it is a book that is profoundly important to read.

All along, I thought that Rosa Parks was the person who initiated the Montgomery Bus Boycott and ensuing desegregation that swept through the South. The reason I thought this? Well, I was taught it! We all were--I know because I looked it up in our school's histo More...

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Dec 09, 2011

Davina rated it:

1. Junior Book-Biography

2. Claudette Colvin was actually the first know African American to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus in Montgomery, Al. This biography exposes parts of history that people never knew or heard of before.

3a. Images and content

3b. I enjoyed the images in this book because they were all real pictures of that time around 1955. They also confirmed how bad segregation was. Since the cover was so colorful, I didn’t expect to see al More...

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Aug 24, 2011

Pam rated it:

There are people in the past for whom the spotlight of history seems to have overlooked - Nikola Tesla and electricity, Rosalind Franklin and DNA, Lucy Stone and the Women's Rights Movement, and now we have a teenager to add to that pantheon: Claudette Colvin and the Civil Rights Movement.

Here is a fascinating story of how a 15-year-old girl started the events that led to the end of Jim Crow on buses in Montgomery, Alabama. Nine months before the world heard of Rosa Parks, Claudet More...

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Jul 12, 2011

Jennifer W rated it:

A well-written biography of a mostly forgotten young women who isn't, but should be, credited with starting the movement that lead to the desegregation of the Montgomery buses. Almost a year before Rosa Parks refused to get up, Claudette, a teenager was dragged off a bus by police officers when she refused to give up her seat. The law said that no one had to give up their seat if there was not another one available. Claudette knew this, so she refused. The police were contacted, boarded the bus, More...

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May 09, 2011

Maggie rated it:

When 15-year-old black high schooler Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in March of 1955, it helped to spark the civil rights movement that would give us such celebrated national heroes as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. But what happened to passionate, opinionated Claudette, whose actions were condemned even by her own community as headstrong and foolish?

In three words: I loved it! Truly excellent young adult nonfiction is hard to find, m More...

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Apr 05, 2011

Amy rated it:

There were so many great moments in Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice that really made the story an emotional read for me.

I had heard about Claudette for the first time last semester in my child lit class, and really only remember that she was a teen that refused to give up her seat a long time before Rosa Parks. But I remember hearing that she was “violent” while she resisted arrest, and she was pregnant. I can’t tell you how humbled I felt reading her story and feeling lik More...

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Mar 21, 2011

akibird rated it:

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Philip Hoose (2009)
Lauded by history legends Studs Terkel and Howard Zinn, Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice tells the tale of an unsung teenage hero who risked it all twice to fight the unconstitutional segregation on Montgomery, Alabama buses. At only 15, Claudette refused to give up her seat in the “colored” section of the bus for a white woman who wanted it. Colvin argued it was her constitutional right and was arrested and removed from More...

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Dec 18, 2010

Donquierafaber rated it:

Ever heard of the first person who refused to move seats and started the civil rights movement in Montgomery, Alabama? No, not Rosa Parks. It was a 15-year-old named Claudette Colvin. Even though I have read many books about Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, I had never heard of this person before. It's pretty sad because her community did not support her. In fact, a lot of her peers stigmatized her. It goes to show that trying to change the way things are takes a lot o More...

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May 28, 2010

Susan rated it:

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice is the compelling story of a young girl who refuses to give up her bus seat to a white woman during the racial segregation era. She is arrested igniting a spark which results in the infamous Montgommery Alabama bus boycott of 1955-56. Instead of being honored she was shunned and riduculed by her school, community and other associates of her family. Overlooked and forgotten, replaced by the more "appropriate poster child" for the cause, Rosa Pa More...

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May 05, 2010

Annette rated it:

In "Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice", Phillip Hoose remembers a forgotten and little known figure of the Civil Rights Movement. Hoose writes with authority: the voices of Claudette and others who were there resonate through the book, which alternates narrative and expository styles to convey the wealth of information and detail gleaned through his many hours of personal interviews with Claudette herself as well as some of her family and friends. In addition, Hoose provides an More...

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Apr 27, 2010

MissDziura rated it:

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice examines one of the lesser-known but extremely important stories of how one high-school girl set the wheels of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Civil Rights movements in motion. The authority of Hoose’s book is evident in its bibliography, notes and picture credits, but also in the Author’s Note where he describes how he came across Colvin’s story and his attempts to have her tell her story. It took him four years and plenty of trying to have Colvin agree t More...

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Apr 27, 2010

Bonnie rated it:

Claudette Colvin is a very important person in the Civil Rights movement in the United States, but not very well known. Hopefully this fascinating and wonderfully researched award winning book will change that. (Ms. Colvin granted interviews to the author.) Claudette was only 15 years old when she had had enough and refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus to white woman. This was months before the also courageous and well known similar act by Rosa Parks. For various reasons More...

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Apr 18, 2010

Jinbin rated it:

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice talks about a 15 year old teenager who refuses to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery. She was arrested for her action of civil disobedience. Unlike Rosa Parks who is remembered by people, Claudette is forgotten by community leaders. However, she became a key plaintiff in Browder vs. Gayle case and segregation laws in Montgomery ended due do it.

I would not have know this book if it was not for the 92nd Y trip. My More...

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Jan 30, 2010

Sophie rated it:

Excellent book. Excellent. It made me angry that Claudette Colvin was deemed "unfit" to lead the bus boycott, and that Rosa Parks is the one we always remember. The Civil Rights movement had many heroes, and only a few are remembered today--usually the least controversial ones (See also: Negroes With Guns by Robert F. Williams).

Claudette Colvin got pregnant a few months after her arrest for refusing to give up her seat for a white person. As she describes it, she was taken More...

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Jan 17, 2010

Pam rated it:

Tomorrow we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Claudette Colvin played a large, but rarely taught role in the movement that brought great fame to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. She was the first teenager to be arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat. She learned what it was like to be rejected by her peers for not straightening her hair and for fighting a battle they believed could not be won, a battle that could bring danger to her friends and family. She learned the frustra More...

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Jan 08, 2010

Sarah rated it:

There were a lot of things I really liked about this book, but I happened to read it right at the same time I was reading another book about the Civil Rights movement that was much better written. So while this is a very good book it didn't quite reach that level for me of best book ever.

I really liked that the author discusses how he came to find out and wright about Claudette, and that it took many years for her to agree to be interviewed for the book. This work certainly is well More...

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Dec 04, 2009

Sarah rated it:

2009 National Book Award Winner for Young People's Literature.

Claudette Colvin's name should be synonymous with Rosa Parks. In fact, she beat her by nine months when in March 1955 she refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white woman and was dragged off to jail. At the time she was only a teenager, motivated by an overwhelming sense of injustice. Instead of being celebrated, she was teased by her classmates and considered too feisty to be a role model for the black community More...

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Nov 28, 2009

Becky rated it:

Nine months before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white woman, a 15-year-old black girl named Claudette Colvin had already been arrested for refusing to do the same thing. Colvin was not part of an organized civil rights protest as Rosa Parks was. She took her stand alone and out of frustration with the Jim Crow segregation laws of the South. In doing so, Colvin helped to set in motion a series of events that led to the desegregation of the public bus system in Montg More...

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Nov 27, 2009

The Loft rated it:

Who are the first people that come to mind when you think of the Montgomery bus boycotts of the 1950s? Are there any teenagers on your list? If not, set a place at the table for several, and in particular, for Claudette Colvin. And make it a round table so that as many people as possible can share her story.

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose, the 2009 National Book Award Winner for Young People’s Literature, is a masterfully crafted, beautifully rendered account More...

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Nov 23, 2009

Debrarian rated it:

The revealing and page-turning account of young Claudette Colvin who, as a black teenager in 1955 Montgomery, was arrested and jailed for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white woman - 9 months before Rosa Parks made headlines for a similar refusal.

The story is vividly told in a combination of narration and first-person accounts transcribed from Hoose's interviews with Claudette and others. Terrific photos and pertinent sidebars illuminate the text just where you want them. A g More...

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May 19, 2009

Kathy rated it:

Fed up with the way blacks were treated in Alabama in the mid 20th century, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin was the first to refuse to give up her legal seat in the back of a Montgomery bus, and was part of the landmark suit that desegregated the buses there, but she has been mostly ignored in the history. With extensive recent interviews with Colvin, interspersed with a smoothly chronological explanation of events of this early successful Civil Rights movement this is an ideal way to present the h More...

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Feb 02, 2012

Angela rated it:

This true story about Claudette Colvin is a very moving one. It is the story of a young girl who refuses to give up her seat on a bus in Alabama during a time when segregation was the rule. Claudette was a very brave, outspoken, and strong headed Negro teenager. She was smart in school and helped her family out at home. She lived with her great-aunt and uncle, but she called them Mom and Dad because they are the ones that raised her. She is arrested and goes to trial for her actions of not More...

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Mar 23, 2011

Josiah rated it:

I can sum up the greatness of this book with the following statement: I believe that the ALA Newbery committee would have been completely justified in making Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice the first non-fiction book to win the Newbery Medal in twenty-two years, after Russell Freedman's Lincoln: A Photobiography, which was given the award in 1988.

To read this book for all it's worth, I think one must use one's imagination to really picture living in a culture in which one' More...

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Nov 22, 2009

Bobby rated it:

Captivating account of Claudette Colvin, a black teenager who refused to give up her seat to a white woman on a Montgomery, Alabama bus -- months before Rosa Parks did the same defiant act. A nearly forgotten and even a somwhat tarnished figure in history, according to this, Colvin was the spark that ignited the bus boycott that led to the desegration of buses and a monumental victory for African-Americans. Shunned by her peers and seemingly by Civil Rights leaders, Colvin's story is a fascina More...

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May 07, 2011

Jessica rated it:

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book. It was interesting and gave a lot of information about everything that was happening with the civil rights movement at the time. I was especially interested in the fact that Rosa Parks was, in fact, the third person to refuse to give up her seat on the bus, and not the first. I also found interesting this book's claim that Rosa Parks and Dr. Martian Luther King Jr. were not the only people involved in this entire thing, that there were many big voices More...

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