Booker T. Washington

by Jan Gleiter, Kathleen Thompson

Traces the life of the African American educator who rose from slavery to found Tuskegee Institute

Genres: Biography

32 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1987

Reviews

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a picture book that is a biography for early readers. I like this book for a few reasons. One, it is easy to read. Two, there is a lot of key information in this book about Booker T. the biography includes how he started out as a slave, it reflects when slavery was abolished, information on his family is included it shows Booker T. going to school for this first time then leaving school and going back to school. It shows the successes he had at the Hampton Insitute, a trade school for blacks, and has facts and other information of how he founded Tuskegee Institute. At the end of the book there is a short time line of key events in Booker T. Washingtons life. The artist of this book was accurate with the clothing, attitudes, and infrastructure at the time. I would use this book to introduce a unit on biographies. Or for a social studies unit perhaps exploring succeses of blacks after slavery was abolished. This book is a great example of a biography for the earlier grades. I liked this book a lot for the classroom applications, I would use this book in my classroom, butI do not feel I need this book.

[Bernadette · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story of Booker T. Washington should be inspirational, but the overly simplified writing in this book makes it very boring. I was not impressed at all by the vocabulary or choppy sentence structure, especially as this book is suggested for a reading level of 2.5 – 3. Basically, it lacks feeling. However, a male student in my class read and loved this book and was very impressed by Booker’s story! The illustrations are beautiful however, and this book may be a good introduction for some students to nonfiction and biographies as it is not very difficult to follow.

[Tori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this because it is a picture book. It is a book that students at the middle of second grade could start to read on their own. This is a book that can be used when in History we are talking about Slavery. This is a book that could be use in Lit. Circles and I could have the theme of the Lit. Circle to be about Slavery or the Civil War. I could also, see using this book for research projects on slavery.