Picture Book 14

A.    Author: Carol Boston Weatherford

B.     Title: Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-In

C.     Illustrations: Jerome Lagarrigue

D.    Readability: 3.2

E.      Genre: Historical

F.      Subgenre:   Fiction

G.    Theme: African American History, Civil Rights Movement, Black History Month

H.    Primary and secondary characters: Daughter and Mother

I.       Award(s) date of publication:  

J.       Publishing company: Dial Books for Young Readers

K.    ISBN number:0-8037-2860-3

L.     Brief summary: A mother and her daughter, step into the snack bar. They grab a soda. But they do not sit, the mother explains, we are not welcome here at the tables. But there is no signs. As she thinks back, there are signs everywhere, white only, black only. When they come home that night, her father tells them that Dr. King will be coming to the city to help make things better for colored folk. Dr. King talked at the college chapel and the crowds said Amen and clapped often!  Soon after her brother and sister joined the NAACP. Then one day mother and daughter went to the snack bar after shopping to find 4 college boys sitting at the counter. They sat there for 4 hours. Soon sit ins began to take over the news. Her brother and sister soon joined the sit ins. The sister was put in jail during a sit in, when her parents came to bail, she refused to leave. Then one day as the mother, father and daughter were headed to town, someone screamed, “They’re serving them!”  All people came to see, the African American women eating and egg salad in the Snack Bar, at the table. That next day, they brother and sister took her to the Snack bar and she ordered her banana spilt.     

M.   Description of how you would use the book with students: This book would be best used to help students understand the start of the sit ins and the racial issues with the 1950’s. We can read this book and connect it to writing, the students can write how they felt about the racial issues.