SIT-IN How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down

Myra Taylor captures the spare prose, vivid metaphors, and determined tone of Pinkney’s picture book about the famous 1960 sit-in at a Woolworth’s “whites only” lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. Four brave college students ignored the practice of segregation and refused to leave until they were served. In a harsh voice, Taylor quotes the waitresses, managers, and other “angry people who gave the students a big dose of hatred.” Taylor relishes the recipes and food-inspired word play sprinkled throughout but doesn’t allow the rhythm or language to diminish the power of the story. At the end, Taylor reads an appended time line of the Civil Rights Movement, which places the story in historical perspective. D.P.D. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2011]