In Angela Joy and Janelle Washington's forceful, strikingly illustrated nonfiction picture book, Choosing Brave, a mother's grief and staggering courage ignites an outcry for social change.
Mamie Elizabeth Carthan was born in Mississippi and grew up in a small town outside of Chicago. Her short-lived union with a boxer named Louis was punctuated by violence and, when she gave birth to Emmett, doctors had "little hope he would ever walk, talk or learn." Louis left for active military duty--"he never did come back"--and, "with love on every side, Emmett grew." The boy even survived polio that left him with a stutter. Mamie realized that whistling was a "work-around" for the stutter, allowing Emmett to stop, take a breath and calm down. It was this whistle that two white men blamed for their brutal murder of the boy. Mamie "did the braver thing" and held an open casket funeral for her son: "Let the people see what I have seen.... Everybody needs to know what happened to Emmett Till."
Joy (Black Is a Rainbow Color) sensitively narrates Mamie's life from girlhood to adulthood as a mother, wife and civil rights activist, showing how the Mother of the Movement fought for racial justice, anti-lynching laws and equal opportunities for communities of color. Debut illustrator Washington pays homage to the woman's legacy through wonderfully detailed paper cuttings based on real-life photographs and documentary footage. Her illustrations also visually link the historical context of Emmett's homicide to contemporary victims of race-based violence. Substantial backmatter includes author and illustrator notes, a soundtrack and vocabulary list, timeline and sources. --Rachel Werner, author and teaching artist at Hugo House, Lighthouse Writers Workshop and The Loft Literary Center