This documentary novel, set during Freedom Summer in Greenwood, Mississippi, is narrated by 12-year-old Sunny, a white girl, and Raymond, a black teenager. Historic photographs, essays, and song lyrics enrich the narrative. Author’s Note, Bibliography.

children's middlegrade historical fiction (60s Mississippi, civil rights). This may very well be an excellent, high-quality book (with TONS of primary sources!), but I don't like to learn about history via fiction (the characters themselves seemed fine, and I probably could've just skipped over the news headlines parts, but still). It is also a very rare child that wants to immerse herself in the 60s in a HEAVY book like this one, so this may also have limited kid appeal--and since it is a children's book, I think it would have helped to note the changing narrators at the beginning of each chapter (rather than letting the reader figure it out in the subsequent paragraphs).

I gulped this book down, but it brought me to tears twice and I had to just slow down and savor it. See my review of the first book in the trilogy Countdown by Deborah Wiles for why I like this "documentary novel" style so much. This second book connects nicely to the first with a crossover character, Jo Ellen, the big sister from book one who in this book is one of the Freedom Summer volunteers. But mostly it is another girl's story, another family, in the South instead of up north, along with an African American boy, Raymond, and it gets at the heart of race relations in 1964 and the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Very moving, very well written. Again, many terrific pages of photographs and quotes and lyrics for context, and biographies this time include Muhammed Ali, SNCC leader Bob Moses, and two incredible women I wish I'd known more about but am glad to meet in this book: Polly Spiegel Cowan and Dorothy Height. I'd read a fair bit about the civil rights era but hadn't heard of the Wednesday Women and I feel ashamed that I hadn't. Or hadn't remembered, anyway. Excellent excellent book. ( )

In between chapters of a traditional novel, she intersperses photographs, quotations, song lyrics, and even whole biographical chapters about real people mentioned in the novel. They can be quite moving, and never let you forget that you’re reading about real events. Sometimes the connection to the story wasn’t clear right away, but with patience some readers will appreciate the atmosphere and factual scaffolding. (Other readers will skip the “documentary” parts entirely, which is also fine — the story works on its own.)

My one criticism is that the initial set of quotes and photographs goes on for 38 pages. That’s way too much material, I think, to expect a middle schooler to absorb without context before getting to the story. I would have stuck to 2-4 pages, just to set the scene and introduce the style, then added more once the story got going.
- Full review at: http://www.parenthetical.net/2014/09/14/review-revolution-by-deborah-wiles-2014-... ( )

Excellent. ( )