weirdypants's review against another edition
informative
fast-paced
3.5
A good starter look at The Great Migration. I was hoping that Blair Imani would be the narrator; I’m sorry to say that Chocolate Rain Guy as the narrator didn’t do it for me.
jg12389's review
4.0
A great book that gives readers an accessible and easy-to-follow history of the great migration. Love the author's work on social media. A great read!
punchofwishes's review against another edition
3.0
I’m a little conflicted about this book. Obviously the history relayed in it is important and serves a great purpose, educating the masses. The art included is beautiful and I enjoyed learning more about these facets of American history. But I found the execution to be less than satisfying. There are a lot of repetitions throughout and a lack of consistent narrative, which may very well be acceptable for a history book, but made for a lesser reading experience. My biggest gripe however, which lowered the book from the 4 star range to the 3.5 it ended up with are the excessive detours on other historical topics, especially Native American Rights, Queer Rights and Feminism. I gladly read about all of these struggles and I appreciated the intersections, but this is a book about African American history and specifically the Great Migration and it’s consequences, not every civil rights struggle throughout the late nineteenth and early to mid twentieth century. I really wanted to love this book more than I did, but the author’s execution left me wanting more.
thechancollection's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
100% should be required reading for every American.
Anyone who doesn’t understand institutional racism & how the past (slavery & segregation & redlining & more) has affected Black people & other POC’s ability to thrive in the same way as white folks needs this book.
I loved how the book was laid out (chronologically! Wooo!) with different types of migrations being mentioned. I learned about many people I’d not heard of before. I adored the illustrations. Very, very, very good read & an important one.
“The institutional structures that prevented Black people from succeeding continued to evolve, & the Black community was often told to pull themselves up by their bootstraps in a world that deprived them of boots.”
The only negative is I keep getting that damn “making my way downtown…” song in my head bc of the title 🙉
Anyone who doesn’t understand institutional racism & how the past (slavery & segregation & redlining & more) has affected Black people & other POC’s ability to thrive in the same way as white folks needs this book.
I loved how the book was laid out (chronologically! Wooo!) with different types of migrations being mentioned. I learned about many people I’d not heard of before. I adored the illustrations. Very, very, very good read & an important one.
“The institutional structures that prevented Black people from succeeding continued to evolve, & the Black community was often told to pull themselves up by their bootstraps in a world that deprived them of boots.”
The only negative is I keep getting that damn “making my way downtown…” song in my head bc of the title 🙉
terryegreen's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Slavery
jenniechantal's review against another edition
4.0
I can see this working in high school classrooms as an intro to the topic as it offers many opportunities to dig deeper. The writing style is straightforward but somewhat dry. It’s definitely YA which I wasn’t expecting. Great illustrations!