thekarpuk's review
4.0
I wouldn't normally take the time to review a children's book, but something about this stuck out to me. I found this book sitting on my mom's coffee table and thought it might be worth the ten minutes or so it would take to read.
Though this book makes the same mistakes a lot of textbooks do in editorializing the hell out of their subject (constantly discussing how heroic he was is the chief overused bit of dramatization), I was impressed at the books willingness not to shy away from the dark truths about the post-civil war era.
The first part of the book goes over what any book would, discussing Robert Smalls escape from slavery via the skills he learned in navigation and sailing. This part of the story is an incredibly easy sell since it's about a slave overcoming adversity left and right. He ends up aiding the union to a ridiculous extent and become a political fixture in the post-war south.
And then it keeps going. Some books would have stopped there. But the author had the honesty to explain to kids how racists took back the south through terror and fraud. Smalls loses his positions multiple times to racists, both on a local level, then due to Dixiecrats at a later date. This book, which I presume is aimed at elementary school children, actually points out how the Republicans of the time actually sold out blacks to big business when supporting them was no longer the easiest political angle. I was shocked how much credit Kennedy actually gives children.
It'd be nice if children's authors made a habit out of this.
Though this book makes the same mistakes a lot of textbooks do in editorializing the hell out of their subject (constantly discussing how heroic he was is the chief overused bit of dramatization), I was impressed at the books willingness not to shy away from the dark truths about the post-civil war era.
The first part of the book goes over what any book would, discussing Robert Smalls escape from slavery via the skills he learned in navigation and sailing. This part of the story is an incredibly easy sell since it's about a slave overcoming adversity left and right. He ends up aiding the union to a ridiculous extent and become a political fixture in the post-war south.
And then it keeps going. Some books would have stopped there. But the author had the honesty to explain to kids how racists took back the south through terror and fraud. Smalls loses his positions multiple times to racists, both on a local level, then due to Dixiecrats at a later date. This book, which I presume is aimed at elementary school children, actually points out how the Republicans of the time actually sold out blacks to big business when supporting them was no longer the easiest political angle. I was shocked how much credit Kennedy actually gives children.
It'd be nice if children's authors made a habit out of this.
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