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2.0
This book is terrible. It starts with Booker T. Washington as a young enslaved boy carrying books to school for the slaveowner’s daughter. It talks about how much Booker wanted to go to school and the awful jobs he had to do to earn money instead. Then the book introduces a white savior character in the form of a strict lady who teaches Booker the power of hard work be being mean to him until he does everything perfectly. Booker does more jobs to follow his dream to go to Hampton Institute to learn. At the school, another white lady judges Booker’s ability to clean a room perfectly—the end. The Afterword tells a little of Booker T. Washington’s many accomplishments, but it’s far too little, too late.
This book should not exist. Had the publisher hired a Black author to write a book, I guarantee it would have been much better than this. It reminds me of the day that my son’s Kindergarten class talked about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and he brought him a a coloring page, “Martin liked baseball.” Young children understand fairness and kindness and more complicated concepts than they are given credit for.
This book should not exist. Had the publisher hired a Black author to write a book, I guarantee it would have been much better than this. It reminds me of the day that my son’s Kindergarten class talked about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and he brought him a a coloring page, “Martin liked baseball.” Young children understand fairness and kindness and more complicated concepts than they are given credit for.
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