Seeds of Freedom The Peaceful Integration of Huntsville, Alabama [Paperback]

“Unflinchingly honest and jubilantly hopeful, this is nonfiction storytelling at its best.” —Publishers Weekly(starred review)

Mention the civil rights era in Alabama and most people recall images of terrible violence. But for the citizens of Huntsville, creativity, courage, and cooperation were the keys to working together to integrate their city and schools in peace. This engaging celebration of a lesser-known chapter in American and African-American history shows how racial discrimination, bullying, and unfairness can be faced successfully with perseverance and ingenuity.An engrossing and heart-wrenching history... Bass’s forthright, passionate prose and Lewis’s searing, expansively imagined watercolors take readers to a time and place when the New Frontier’s rockets heralded American exceptionalism and pride, while bigotry and discrimination were justified as “just the way it is.” ... Unflinchingly honest and jubilantly hopeful, this is nonfiction storytelling at its best.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The use of present tense gives a great sense of immediacy to the text as it transports readers into the past to watch events unfold. The relatively peaceful changes in Huntsville are briefly contrasted with the violence in Birmingham around the same time. Capturing the period with finesse, Lewis’ expressive watercolor paintings record the events and settings in beautifully composed scenes. His portrayal of people is particularly fine, conveying the personalities, attitudes, and emotions of individuals as well as the essential dignity of the nonviolent protesters. A valuable introduction to the civil rights period.
—Booklist (starred review)

Bass writes in the present tense with a conversational tone... She includes details that will resonate with children while also imparting an inspirational message, tinged with her own civic pride (she is a former reslÃL