Bound To Stay Bound

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Booklist - 02/01/2015 African Americans Ella Mae and her cousin Charlotte need back-to-school shoes. At the shoe store, the whites are served first, even though Ella Mae and her mama are already there. Now Mama must make a paper tracing of her daughter’s feet and buy the shoes without trying them on first to see if they fit. The girls understand that this is unfair, and they find a way to fight back. They scrub floors, pick beans, and mind babies, asking for payment in outgrown shoes. After polishing up the used footwear, they open for business in the barn. Naturally, at their store, patrons are allowed to try on the shoes first! In a happy conclusion to an unfair situation, the girls triumph by fighting back against injustice. An author’s note at the end explains the unjust Jim Crow laws supporting segregation that permeated America until the mid-1960s. The use of angled light and rich colors highlight each detailed page; pastel dresses shine, red Mary Janes gleam, and the individual faces glow in pictures done in oils on watercolor paper. - Copyright 2015 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 02/01/2015 Gr 1–3—Ella Mae usually gets her new school shoes as hand-me-downs from her older cousin, Charlotte. One day, Charlotte's old shoes are too tight for Ella Mae and so the girl gets to buy a brand new pair of shoes. At Johnson's General Store, however, Ella Mae is treated differently from another customer with "yellow pigtails." The treatment is because of the color of her skin: she is served second even though she arrived first, and she is not allowed to try on any of the beautiful new shoes. With a little brainstorming and some hard work, Ella Mae and Charlotte come up with a plan to allow everyone to try on shoes before they buy them. The illustrations paint an accurate historical picture of the 1950s and do well enough to bring out the characters' emotions, which may not otherwise be noticed in the text. An author's note at the end explains Jim Crow, the civil rights movement, and the evolution of language used to describe African Americans. The use of a lesser-known Jim Crow situation makes it stand out from other titles dedicated to this topic, but the message is very similar. VERDICT A decent introduction to the history of segregation in the U.S.—Brittany Staszak, St. Charles Public Library, IL - Copyright 2015 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 04/01/2015 Ella Mae is used to getting her cousin Charlotte’s outgrown shoes, just as her brother Clayton gets cousin Winslow’s hand-me-downs. This time, though, as Ella Mae is happy to discover, Charlotte’s shoes pinch and she’ll actually get a new pair of her own, the saddle shoes in Mr. Johnson’s store window. The experience isn’t all she hoped it would be, though; white customers who arrived after her and Mama were served first, and rather than being allowed to try on shoes for a proper fit, Mama had to trace her daughter’s foot on brown paper so Mr. Johnson could estimate Ella Mae’s size. The humiliation takes much of the shine right off those new shoes, but Ella Mae and Charlotte find a clever way to fight the system. Doing chores for five cents and an old pair of shoes as payment, the girls refurbish the footwear and open up their own shoe store in the shed, with “price 10¢ and another used pair” and everyone invited to try on the goods. An author’s note establishes that the story is set in the 1950s, a period when “segregation was especially strong in the South, but it could be found throughout the United States,” and she remarks on other common discriminatory practices. Velasquez portrays Mama and the resourceful girls with near-photorealistic precision, slightly stylizing the background and supporting cast to bring the protagonists into relief. Pair this with Ramsey’s Ruth and the Green Book (BCCB 12/10) for a fist-bumping storytime on the way that sharp wits and cooperation outsmarted Jim Crow. EB - Copyright 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

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