There Comes a Time: The Struggle for Civil Rights (Landmark Books) - Hardcover

Milton Meltzer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375804072 ISBN 13: 9780375804076

Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers, 2001

Synopsis

Historian, scholar, and award-winning author Milton Meltzer outlines the struggle of African Americans for "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," starting with the landing of the first slave ships on colonial shores. How did over 300 years of slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow laws come to an end in the civil rights movement of the 1960s? What was achieved, and what are the problems still facing us today?

About this title

About the Author

Milton Meltzer is a respected name in children's nonfiction. Among his many honors are five nominations for the National Book Award.

From the Back Cover

"One of the most critically acclaimed, best-selling children's book series ever published." -- The New York Times

Reviews

Grade 5 Up-This concise, informational overview of the civil rights movement in America opens with four brave young men sitting at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, NC, on January 31, 1960, and then goes back more than 300 years to the roots of slavery. Meltzer details centuries of African-American history with an immediacy that keeps readers turning the pages. The writing is clear and straightforward, making it accessible and appealing. For today's students who did not live through the '50s and '60s, some of the events that dramatically unfold will seem like fiction, but the lengthy bibliography attests to its accuracy. This is nonfiction at its best. Meltzer examines all facets of the civil rights struggle and the history of racism in this country. His perceptive account will cause readers to think critically about where we have been and where we are going as a nation. Well-captioned black-and-white photos appear throughout. A must for all collections, and a fine companion to Mary Turck's The Civil Rights Movement for Kids (Chicago Review, 2000).
Eunice Weech, M. L. King Elementary School, Urbana, IL
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 7-12. This respected author's survey of civil rights starts out weakly but eventually builds up enough steam to close with a stirring call to action. Meltzer begins with slavery and the promise of Reconstruction, tracing seesawing political developments. These early pages read like a textbook, illuminating but detached. It is not until the chapters on school desegregation in Little Rock, sit-in strikes, and the freedom rides that the details deepen and the narrative begins to carry an emotional impact. The book ends shortly after the King assassination, as the movement loses momentum. Meltzer says the subsequent decades--regardless of which party was in power--were devoid of real leadership, and he echoes William Julius Wilson's call for a multiracial coalition to push for political change. The short chapters will initially appeal to reluctant readers, but the lack of subheads and sidebars and the dearth of illustrations (there are some) make the text uninviting. A bibliography and a chronology of events from 1940 to 1968 are appended. Randy Meyer
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0375804072
• ISBN 13: 9780375804076
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208