Claudette Colvin: I Want Freedom Now!

Civil rights icon Claudette Colvin (1939-2026) and Phillip Hoose―author of the Newbery Honor and National Book Award-winning blockbuster biography Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice―tell her groundbreaking story in this unforgettable picture book illustrated by New York Times–bestselling artist Bea Jackson.

Montgomery, Alabama 1955. Fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin is tired. Tired of white people thinking they’re better than her. Tired of going to separate schools and separate bathrooms. Most of all, she’s tired of having to give up her seat on the bus whenever a white person tells her to. She wants freedom NOW! But what can one teenager do?

On a bus ride home from school one day, young Claudette takes a stand for justice and refuses to get up from her seat―nine months before Rosa Parks will become famous for doing the same. What follows will not only transform Claudette’s life but the course of history itself.

In the words of Claudette Colvin herself, as told to acclaimed nonfiction writer Phillip Hoose, this empowering, heroic story illustrates how one simple act of courage can create real and lasting change.

Bea Jackson creates to encapsulate a moment in time, challenging herself to combine her boundless imagination with experiences and emotion and capture the result on paper. A lifelong collector of both picture books and comics, she admires art's ability to speak perfectly on its own and translate ideas without words. As a digital painter using textures that mimic pastels, oil paints, and watercolor, she pursues the rainbow in her palette, seeking to add a touch of childhood magic to her work. From one of her earliest illustrated picture books, Hair Like Mine, to the New York Times bestselling Parker Looks Up, Bea explores themes that unify rather than divide.

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