The Civil Rights Freedom Train

by Bentley Boyd

Chester Comix brings history to reluctant readers! In this full-color graphic novel you will find exciting biographies of Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and Thurgood Marshall. A timeline across every page helps students place people and events in context. Each book can be a literacy tool (the titles across the top of each page are questions, which make great writing prompts for students) or a research source (each book has an index).

24 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2005

About the author

There was no class at Harvard University to learn how to draw a talking crab on Patrick Henry’s shoulder.

But I’ve strung together ideas and curiosity and a little bit of talent for 30 years now and have used comix to teach several generations of young people about American history and civics.

When I was a kid desperate to buy a comic book — ANY comic I could find — I didn’t think we’d ever really get to live in a science fiction world with a computer in every pocket and dedicated comic book stories packed with a rainbow of books of all shapes and sizes. I did dream, though. I devoured the daily newspaper and its comix before I delivered the paper every morning. I read biographies all summer long. I wrote fiction for myself and nonfiction for the school newspapers. I drew my own characters in my own comix (and quickly realized I don’t have the patience for drawing complicated city skylines — so a career with Batman was out). My early career centered on being a political cartoonist for newspapers. An opportunity in 1995 allowed me to transform that work into Chester the Crab and my dream of graphic storytelling.

Reviews

[Leslie Morrison]

These comics are really well done. I love the coordinating lesson ideas (i.e. vocabulary words, quiz, craft ideas, etc) the author provides on his website—he has one for almost every comic.