Birmingham Sunday, by Larry Dane Brimner, is a moving account of a slice of the civil rights movement in the United states. The book begins on September 15, 1963, but soon goes back to fill in the story so the reader can see what led up to the violence that killed the four girls in the basement bathroom of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

This book is full of black and white pictures that paint a story of the tension between blacks and whites and compel the reader to turn the pages. It covers the Children’s Crusade and touches on MLK’s time in jail and his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. The fact that it covers the Children’s Crusade will be of interest to children as they can see that they can change the world, and also that they can die for their causes as well as adults can. This book is a moving story filled with courage and hatred and anger and fear. It ends, as it began, with the September 15, 1963 bombing of the Birmingham Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and with short biographies of the four girls killed.

There is a whole lot to like about the book. The writing is done in a conversational tone and the author paints scenes that put the reader there, in the action, with the real people that lived through that moment in history. This book  puts  faces on the victims and on the oppressors. It forces us to see what hate does—where it ends. I also liked the way the book was formatted—the pictures and text, and colored backgrounds setting off the text—it is easy to read and pleasant to look at, and it seems to me that it will draw readers in.  

This is a good book for students looking at civil rights, or thinking about God’s command that we love our neighbors. As sad as the tale is, I’m happy to add it to my home library, because we need to remember these times and these people.

For more great nonfiction books, head over to Wild About Nature where the round-up is being hosted this week.

And here’s Joan Baez, singing Birmingham Sunday for you:

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