Rosa

by Nikki Giovanni, Bryan Collier (Illustrator)

Overview

She had not sought this moment but she was ready for it. When the policeman bent down to ask “Auntie, are you going to move?” all the strength of all the people through all those many years joined in her. She said, “No.”

 

An inspiring account of an event that shaped American history

 

Fifty years after her refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus, Mrs. Rosa Parks is still one of the most important figures in the American civil rights movement. This picture- book tribute to Mrs. Parks is a celebration of her courageous action and the events that followed.

     

Award-winning poet, writer, and activist Nikki Giovanni’s evocative text combines with Bryan Collier’s striking cut-paper images to retell the story of this historic event from a wholly unique and original perspective.

 Rosa is a 2006 Caldecott Honor Book and the winner of the 2006 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780805071061
Publisher:	Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Publication date:	10/01/2005
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	101,479
Product dimensions:	8.85(w) x 11.32(h) x 0.43(d)
Lexile:	900L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Nikki Giovanni has written many books of poetry for children and adults. She is the author of Lincoln and Douglass, The Genie in the Jar, and Ego-tripping and Other Poems for Young People. Rosa is a Caldecott Honor book. Giovanni calls herself, "a Black American, a daughter, a mother, a professor of English."  She was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and grew up in Lincoln Heights, an all-black suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. She studied at Fisk University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University.  She published her first book of poetry, Black Feeling Black Talk, in 1968, and since then has become one of America’s most widely read poets. Oprah Winfrey named her as one of her twenty-five “Living Legends.” Her autobiography Gemini was a finalist for the National Book Award, and several of her books have received NAACP Image Awards. She has received some twenty-five honorary degrees, been named Woman of the Year by Mademoiselle Magazine, The Ladies Home Journal and Ebony, was the first recipient of the Rosa L. Parks Woman of Courage Award, and has been awarded the Langston Hughes Medal for poetry.  Nikki Giovanni lives in Christiansburg, Virginia, where she is a professor of English at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

Bryan Collier is the author and illustrator of Uptown, winner of the Coretta Scott King Award and the Ezra Jack Keats Book Award. He is also the illustrator of Martin’s Big Words, which was a Caldecott Honor Book. The Chicago Sun-Times has called Collier’s art “breathtakingly beautiful.” Mr. Collier lives with his family in Harlem in New York City.

Reading Group Guide

Discussion Questions

• In his illustrator's note, Bryan Collier says that he painted with a yellow hue in ROSA, to reflect

the heat of Montgomery, AL and the "uneasy quiet before the storm" (page 2). Do you notice this

throughout the book? Where do you see it, or feel it, the most? Are there other symbols in the

art? What do you think they mean?

• On the end papers of the book, a bus rider is reading a newspaper article on Emmet Till. On

page 4 Raymond Parks is reading a paper with an article that mentions King – perhaps this is Dr.

Martin Luther King. Where else do you see reference to the men and women who were part of the

struggle for Civil Rights in this country? How do these people relate to each other?

• In discussion of this book the author, Nikki Giovanni, has said that the bus driver, James Blake,

was a man of time, while Rosa Parks was a woman outside of her time. What does this mean?

• Rosa Parks did not plan to stage a protest on the bus that day. "She had not sought this

moment, but she was ready for it." (page 18) How do you think that Rosa Parks became ready for

that moment?

• The struggle for civil and human rights continues in this country and around the world today.

What examples can you think of? What are the issues involved? Are there any recent examples of

a person, like Rosa Parks, whose "no becomes a YES for change"? (page 34)

Editorial Reviews

"Paired very effectively with Giovanni's passionate, direct words, Collier's large watercolor-and-collage illustrations depict Parks as an inspiring force that radiates golden light." — Booklist, Starred Review "Purposeful in its telling, this is a handsome and thought-provoking introduction to these watershed acts of civil disobedience." — School Library Journal "Giovanni and Collier offer a moving interpretation of Rosa Park's momentous refusal to give up her bus seat.  The author brings her heroine very much to life...a fresh take on a remarkable historic event." — Publishers Weekly "An essential volume for classrooms and libraries." — Kirkus Reviews

Paired very effectively with Giovanni's passionate, direct words, Collier's large watercolor-and-collage illustrations depict Parks as an inspiring force that radiates golden light.” —Booklist, Starred Review

“Purposeful in its telling, this is a handsome and thought-provoking introduction to these watershed acts of civil disobedience.” —School Library Journal

“Giovanni and Collier offer a moving interpretation of Rosa Park's momentous refusal to give up her bus seat. The author brings her heroine very much to life...a fresh take on a remarkable historic event.” —Publishers Weekly

“An essential volume for classrooms and libraries.” —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher