Sunday, May 21, 2023

Love is Loud by Sandra Neil Wallace and Bryan Collier - ESSENTIAL

Love is Loud: How Diane Nash Led the Civil Rights Movement
 by Sandra Neil Wallace, illustrated by Bryan Collier. PICTURE BOOK, BIOGRAPHY Simon Schuster. 2023. $19. 9781534451032 

BUYING ADVISORY: EL (K-3), EL - ESSENTIAL 

AUDIENCE APPEAL: HIGH

Diane Nash was born in Chicago in 1938. After high school, Diane moved to Tennessee for college. Segregation is strongly enforced in Tennessee and Diane sees it for the first time. Diane is encouraged to go along to get along, but Diane won’t follow the rules if the rules are wrong. Diane believes that love, strength, and determination is the way to change the rules. She and her friends go to a lunch counter, and order a sandwich, causing much confusion and anger. Diane is arrested after several sit-ins at lunch counters. She is arrested for ordering a sandwich. Diane leads six thousand Black Americans to meet the mayor of Nashville to convince him to stop segregation. By the time Diane was 22, Nashville’s lunch counters served all Americans, white or black. Next, Diane arranges for Freedom Riders to ride a bus across America to promote civil rights. At age 23, pregnant with her first child, she is jailed for putting the Freedom Riders in action. As more violence occurs, Diane almost quits but she continues to work for civil rights. For the next 50 years, she travels across America to promote freedom, voting rights, women’s rights, and civil rights for men and women of all colors. Towns across America welcome her, and appreciate her bravery strength, and courage.

Collier’s watercolor illustrations are realistic and authentic. The reader can feel the emotions, indignation, and seriousness of the segregated South in the ’60s. Nash’s story is full of courage, history, and dedication. Diane Nash is a hero to the civil rights movement as well as the women’s movement. She is not well known, but with Love is Loud, she will be on the minds and lips of many people who read Wallace’s book. The Author’s Note, Illustrator’s note, timeline, quote sources, bibliography, and resources provide more information for further study and the photographs of Diane are priceless and educational. A must-read for elementary school students, a valuable book for the study of the civil rights movement in the history curriculum.

The characters are multicultural. 

Deanna M. - Elementary Media Tech

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