Resistance stories from black history

 I picked up Rann Miller's Resistance Stories from Black History for Kids Expanded Edition: Inspiring People and Events that Every Kid Should Know based on a reference from another text. Although I learned things from the book, it did not meet my expectations. It is more of a textbook than a story book. It details many things that I did not know. At times it made me uncomfortable, a sure sign my white privilege was dealing with information that I was both unaware of and not proud about. Unfortunately, the story of our country's past is not a uniform one of greatness. It is full of stumbles, missteps and serious errors, not always followed by corrections. We have great ideals and do not consistently work to uphold them.

The book spans the timeline from ancient African civilizations to modern day America. It provides information primarily about the Americas, but tells of modern black history as it impacts and is impacted by the people in the lands it speaks of. I learned about Caribbean and South and Central American efforts at throwing off the mantle of persecution and drivee for both freedom and equality. Portions of it could be very inspirational for students struggling to define their personal identities. I wish there was more of a storytelling slant to the work. The pedantic style will not engage everyone. It is heavily referenced with 847 footnotes, a glossary, many context clues for vocabulary understanding and a comprehensive index.

The book is an easy read with short chapters followed by reflection questions. That said, it is inconsistently edited. Portions include grammatical errors, missing words and awkward sentences. I do not fault the author's use of vernacular, but that is not where these issues emerge. It would be interesting to take some of the sentences out of the text for an ELA task of Jeff Anderson's idea of building sentences. (Break a sentence into a series of simple sentences and get students to combine them to form a single sentence.) 

The book provided a thoughtful read, but not the stories I was looking for. I can see pulling out segments to enhance a social studies curriculum.