Voice of Freedom Fannie Lou Hamer by Carole Boston Weatherford andIllustrated by Ekua Holmes

Wow....just WOW! I rate a book on how it makes me feel....I wept through this book. Wept for the people, for Fanny and everything she went through, and everything she accomplished. But I also wept for my naïveté. Last Feb I visited Charleston, SC. We toured plantations. I came away with the feeling that I had never really known the depth of prejudice and racism until I heard the stories of the slaves and seeing their cemetery. My best friend has the kindest soul, and when she entered the cemetery she started coughing horribly. I know she was affected deeply by just the sight of the cemetery and the wrought iron archway at the entrance. The depressions in the ground where the rotting wooden coffins had sunk were the only indication that it was a cemetery, there were no markers of any kind. Of course now there is a sign explaining all of this. Injustice should affect people this way. In the children book world right now, talk of the need for diversity is strong, as it should be. It reminds me of when the picture book about George Washington's chef had smiling slaves on the cover. There are NO smiling slaves, and book people everywhere protested that cover. Scholastic pulled it from it's inventory after the criticism. Another book that makes me believe that reading and books can change your life. Please, please read this book, & then when you think your children are ready, read it to them.