Because Claudette

From NYT bestselling author Tracey Baptiste comes a singular picture book that is both a biography about Claudette Colvin, the teen whose activism launched the Montgomery bus boycott, and a celebration of collective action.

When fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin boarded a segregated bus on March 2, 1955, she had no idea she was about to make history. At school she was learning about abolitionists like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, which helped inspire her decision to refuse to give up her seat to a white woman, which led to her arrest, which began a crucial chain of events: Rosa Park’s sit-in nine months later, the organization of the Montgomery bus boycott by activists like Professor Jo Ann Robinson and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the Supreme Court decision that Alabama’s bus segregation was unconstitutional—a major triumph for the civil rights movement.

Because of Claudette’s brave stand against injustice, history was transformed. Now it’s time for young readers to learn about this living legend, her pivotal role in the civil rights movement, and the power of one person reaching out to another in the fight for change.

About the Authors

Tracey Baptiste is the New York Times bestselling author of Minecraft: The Crash, as well as the creepy Caribbean series The Jumbies. She’s also written the contemporary young adult novel Angel’s Grace and nine nonfiction books for kids in elementary through high school. A former elementary school teacher, Tracey does numerous author visits, and is on the faculty at Lesley University’s Creative Writing MFA program.

Tonya Engel is an artist who has had studios in New York, Paris, Austin, and Houston, where she lives now. Figurative and full of symbolism, her work is influenced by both folk artists of the Deep South and contemporary masters like Frida Kahlo and Marc Chagall. She is also the illustrator of My Hair Is Magic and Rise!, a picture book biography about Maya Angelou.