Sit-In

Juvenile nonfiction 

"David, Joseph, Franklin, and Ezell 

sat while everyone else got served.

At first they were treated like 

the hole in a doughnut--invisible.

Others tried to ignore them.

The waitress watched and refused them.

This was a sign of the times:

WHITES ONLY."

     Andrea Davis Pinkney's Sit-In can really help younger readers grasp one of the evils of Jim Crow America.  Despite the pandemic most have a script for restaurant dining.  All know what it's like to be hungry.  They can imagine how they'd feel if at a place where they weren't served because of their skin color.

     February 1, 1960 four Black college students sat down at a Woolworth's lunch counter.  Each tried to order a doughnut and coffee.  But none were served that day or the next or the next...

     The segregationists were determined to hold the line.  Some became physically abusive.  Police started carting some of the growing number of protesters off to jail.

     But the writing was on the wall with sit-ins springing up in other cities and network TV bringing the conflict into homes across the nation.

     This is a good book with which to introduce children to a defining moment in our nation's history.

On a purrrsonal note, I am more than a little nervous.  I'll be doing my first ever lunch and learn Wednesday: a discussion of ageism in everyday life in the multicultural room.  And it's more than just can I pull this off jitters.  According to the TV meteorologist and my smartphone we're supposed to get the first snow of the year.  Not gentle little flakes.  Oh, no!  A snow/freezing rain slushy mess.  (Jules)

She'll do just fine.  Unless they cancel school.  (Tobago)

Nooooooo!  (Jules)

A great big shout out goes out to the people who will show up and pay rapt attention.  Unless school is canceled.

Tobago Hathaway 

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