Choosing Brave

Juvenile Nonfiction 

"The boy they found was far from home, 

far from Mother and Grandmother.

'Here on a visit,' Papa Mose would say.

The sheriff set out to dig a grave that day,

to hide the crime in the mud of Mississippi,

where no one would see the boy's suffering.

But Mamie did the harder thing.

She said, 'No.  You send my boy home.'"

     Nearly seventy years ago a fourteen-year-old Chicago boy took the train to Mississippi to visit relatives.  About a week into his visit he vanished...

     ...until his brutally tortured and mutilated body was found in the Tallahatcie River.  

     Law enforcement wanted to literally bury the evidence of the crime.  But his mother, Mamie, insisting on bringing him home and having an open casket funeral.

          "Let the world see what I have seen.

     We have averted our eyes for too long.

Everybody needs to know what happened to

                           Emmett Till."

                     Mamie Till-Mobley

     Angela Joy's Choosing Brave brings Mamie and Emmett to life for young readers.  It shows the challenges both faced and the courage with which they tackled them.  It reveals how, faced with the greatest loss a mother could suffer, Mamie spent the rest of her life working to change minds and hearts.

     Sadly, as the last illustration shows this country has a long way to eliminate the kind of racism that killed Emmitt Till.

     This truthful book is an excellent acquisition for school and public libraries.

Jules Hathaway 

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