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Leon's Story
Contributor(s): Tillage, Leon Walter (Author), Roth, Susan L. (Illustrator)
ISBN: 0374443300     ISBN-13: 9780374443306
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
OUR PRICE:   $8.09  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: September 2000
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Annotation: "In this riveting autobiography, Baltimore janitor Leon Walter Tillage reflects on his life with all the vitality of a storyteller gathering his audience around him . . . . Roth's dramatic black-and-white collages pay homage to the power of Leon's story, a tale that does more in its gentle way to expose the horrors of racism than most works of fiction ever could."--"Publishers Weekly."
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Juvenile Nonfiction | Biography & Autobiography - Cultural, Ethnic & Regional
- Juvenile Nonfiction | History - United States - 20th Century
Dewey: B
LCCN: 96043544
Lexile Measure: 970
Series: Sunburst Books
Physical Information: 0.34" H x 5.14" W x 7" (0.24 lbs) 107 pages
Themes:
- Chronological Period - 1900-1949
- Cultural Region - South
- Ethnic Orientation - African American
- Geographic Orientation - North Carolina
Accelerated Reader Info
Quiz #: 25238
Reading Level: 4.9   Interest Level: Middle Grades   Point Value: 2.0
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

Leon's Story is a powerful, wonderful thing -- Nikki Giovanni

I remember that as a young boy I used to look in the mirror and I would curse my color, my blackness. But in those days they didn't call you black. They didnt say minority. They called us colored or nigger.

Leon Tillage grew up the son of a sharecropper in a small town in North Carolina. Told in vignettes, this is his story about walking four miles to the school for black children, and watching a school bus full of white children go past. It's about his being forced to sit in the balcony at the movie theater, hiding all night when the Klansmen came riding, and worse. Much worse.

But it is also the story of a strong family and the love that bound them together. And, finally, it's about working to change an oppressive existence by joining the civil rights movement. Edited from recorded interviews conducted by Susan L. Roth, Leon's story will stay with readers long after they have finished his powerful account.

Leon's Story is the winner of the 1998 Boston Globe - Horn Book Award for Nonfiction.


Contributor Bio(s): Tillage, Leon Walter: - Leon Walter Tillage lives in Baltimore, Maryland, where he has worked for thirty years as a custodian at The Park School. He is the author of Leon's Story, illustrated by Susan L. Roth.Roth, Susan L.: -

This is the first collaboration between Susan L. Roth and Nancy Patz. Susan has written and illustrated several books for children, including Hard Hat Area, Great Big Guinea Pigs, and My Love for You. She lives in New York City.