They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group
by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Book banning has become the norm in Texas, the state where I grew up and came back to live in after 21 years away in my 30s and 40s. One such ban occurred in Llano County in the picturesque Hill Country, where a number of books were removed from the public library shelves by right-wing nut jobs because of "porn" (read: against their political and religious beliefs).
One of the books was They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group, written in 2010 by Susan Campbell Bartoletti. This book received lots of recognition, including being named a National Council of Teachers of English Orbis Pictus Recommended Title, American Library Assocition's Young Adult Library Services Association Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist, and National Council for the Social Studies/Children's Book Council Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People. I'd bought it for the curriculum collection (used by future teachers) at my university library, but had not had a chance to read the book until now.
Bartoletti, a former 8th-grade English teacher, has written a number of award-winning nonfiction books for children and young adults. Through primary and secondary source documents, period drawings and articles, and photographs and interviews with former slaves in the 1930s, Bartoletti traces the history of the Ku Klux Klan, from its inception in Pulaski, Tennessee, after the Civil War as an almost-fraternity-like organization (complete with initiation rites and secret rituals), through the Reconstruction era, and touching on its continuance into the 21st century. She adeptly demonstrates how post-Civil War and Reconstruction conditions in the South led to the proliferation of this terrorist group.
The book ends with a civil rights time line that extends from 1863 (Emancipation Proclamation) to 2008 (election of President Obama). Bartoletti provides attributions for all the quotations she uses, as well as an extensive bibliography and source notes, and a thorough index. The 172-page book is quite readable, written in a narrative nonfiction style with at least one illustration or long quote on every double-page spread.
This book BELONGS in every public library. With a Lexile measure of 1180 and an Accelerated Reader level of grade 9.2, it is also appropriate for ALL middle school and high school libraries. It is most certainly NOT "porn." It is uncomfortable history - especially for racists.
Some Llano County residents filed suit against the Llano County commissioners and library board concerning the bans. In late March 2023, a judge ruled in their favor, and ordered the banned books back on the shelves. The commissioners considered closing the libraries rather than putting the books back, but after public outcry, left the libraries open.
One copy of the book is owned for the entire three-branch system, and it was checked out when I last looked (although whether or not it is overdue - sometimes an indicator someone is trying to keep the book off the shelves - is not clear). Although it is classified as a young adult book, it is shelved in the adult section at this library - as it is at the library in my right-wing nut job county too.
Banana by Zoey Abbott - early reviewer, picture book
A dad and his daughter do lots of things together - until he buys a Banana. It's a real banana in the book, but I think it's a code for a certain fruit-named device that seems to be an obsession to so many. Because that's what happens with the dad - at first he does things with his daughter and the Banana, but soon he's spending time alone with it. So the daughter takes an action that is realistic for a fruit, but not really for a device.
I think the message of this book will be missed by a picture book audience - it's really a book for parents rather than children. However, the pencil and risograph-printed illustrations by author Zoey Abbott are pleasing.
I think the message of this book will be missed by a picture book audience - it's really a book for parents rather than children. However, the pencil and risograph-printed illustrations by author Zoey Abbott are pleasing.
Granny Came Here on the Empire Windrush by Patrice Lawrence, illustrated by Camilla Sucre - early reviewer, picture book
Little Ava needs to dress up as a person she admires for school, so her Trinidadian Granny invites her to look for inspiration in her trunk of old clothes. Items in the trunk suggest Trinidadian pianist Winifred Atwell, Jamaican-British nurse Mary Seacole, and American activist Rosa Parks, but others in Ava's class have already clamed those. Ava finds a small cardboard suitcase in the bottom of the trunk, that her Granny used when she came to London from Trinidad on the Empire Windrush. Granny explains the stories behind the unusual items in the suitcase, which leads to Ava's decision on who she most admires.
This is a heartfelt story about immigration and some of its hardships, both in adapting to and acceptance in the new country, and missing the old home . The mother of author Patrice Lawrence emigrated from Trinidad to England, just like Granny. Trinidadian-American illustrator Camilla Sucre's lush colorful artwork adds much to the story.
I wanted to know more about Atwell, Seacole, and the Empire Windrush. Brief biographical/historical sketches at the end of the book on each of these (and Rosa Parks) would extend the range of the book beyond the traditional picture book age to middle grades.
I wanted to know more about Atwell, Seacole, and the Empire Windrush. Brief biographical/historical sketches at the end of the book on each of these (and Rosa Parks) would extend the range of the book beyond the traditional picture book age to middle grades.
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
Another book banned at the Llano County Public Library was Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson. This book is not classified as a children's or even young adult book (although it could certainly be read by the latter), so trying to say it needed to be removed because it was "porn" children might see was disingenuous, to say the least. The book has no illustrations.
Wilkerson makes a compelling case that the United States has a caste system, like that of India - or Nazi Germany - that underpins the racism we continue to see in the USA. It was horrifying to learn that the Nazis modeled their caste system on characteristics of that in the United States.
Here in the USA, caste depends on skin color - something easily determined by outsiders, and something one is born with and cannot easily overcome. Many lower class whites consider themselves superior to those with darker skin, despite any achievements of the latter in education, careers, etc. Our unspoken caste system helps explain why many whites seemingly vote against their best interests - they (perhaps unconsciously) want to maintain their places on a higher rung in our caste system.
In part three of her book, Wilkerson discusses the eight "pillars" or underpinnings of a caste system: divine will and the laws of nature, heritability, endogamy (marrying only within your group) and the control of marriage and mating, purity versus pollution, occupational hierarchy, dehumanization and stigma, terror as enforcement (think KKK), cruelty as a means of control, and inherent superiority versus inherent inferiority. She provides numerous examples throughout the book, through antidotes from her own life and the lives of many others.
There are far better reviews of this book out there (especially in LibraryThing) than mine, but those who most need to read this book probably will never do so.
One copy of the book is owned for the entire three-branch system, and it was checked out when I last looked (although whether or not it is overdue - sometimes an indicator someone is trying to keep the book off the shelves - is not clear). It is (rightly) shelved in the adult section at this library - as it is at the library in my right-wing nut job county too.
The All-American by Susie Finkbeiner
Both the title and the blurb on the LibraryThing Early Reviewers page made me think this book was more about the early 1950s experience of being in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, popularized in the 1992 movie A League of Their Own. Bertha Harding, a tomboy eager to play pro ball, is one of the novel's two narrators - the other is her younger sister, Florence (aka Flossie), an unpopular bookworm. Their father is an author, but when he is falsely accused of being a Communist (it's the McCarthy era), their Detroit suburb turns against them. The family moves to an uncle's large home in a tiny Michigan town. Bertha finally gets to try out with the league (almost 200 pages into the book).
I would have liked to read more about Bertha's experiences with the league, as well as how the false accusations of Communism were handled - it seemed that part was just glossed over. I read an advanced reading copy from uncorrected proofs, and I do hope the final published book combines more sentences into paragraphs (at times it seemed every sentence began a new paragraph, and it wasn't just for dialogue). There was also a chapter at the end for an entirely different novel, with no indication if it's from a book yet to be published, or one of author Susie Finkbeiner's other books, or something else altogether. I did appreciate the way the Detroit suburb's librarian spoke up against banning books (page 141).
© Amanda Pape - 2023
