Author | Chris Crowe |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Published | 2003 |
Publisher | Dial Books for Young Readers |
Pages | 128 |
Getting Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case is a 2003 young adult non-fiction book by American author Chris Crowe. The book details the history of Emmett Till, a teenaged African-American boy, who was abducted and murdered after offending a white woman at a grocery store. The book was positively received and won an American Library Association award for Best Book for Young Adults in 2004 and the Jane Addams Peace Association Honor Book Award for Older Children.
In August 1955 in Mississippi, Emmett Till, an African-American teenager from Chicago, was visiting his family in the South. After reportedly making advances at a married, white woman at a store while with his friends, Till was abducted by white men and brutally murdered. After a brief trial, the men were acquitted. They later confessed to the crime with impunity because they could not be tried twice for the same crime. The murder of Till caused outrage and ignited the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.
Author Chris Crowe became acquainted with the story of Emmett Till while researching for his book Presenting Mildred D. Taylor. One of Taylor's essays mentioned the Till murder which interested Crowe. Crowe researched the Till case after he finished the Taylor book and interviewed Till's mother over the telephone for some of the information in the book. The book was published in 2003 by Dial Books for Young Readers. [1] The book contains original case material and over 40 contextual photographs as well as direct quotations from historical news articles and first-person accounts. [2] However, it was revised and updated in 2018 with new information that was not available at the time of original publication. [3]
The book received positive reviews. Publishers Weekly said the author "pays a powerful tribute to a boy whose untimely death spurred a national chain of events". [4] The Chicago Tribune stated that "the explanation of the bravery of Emmett's mother, family and friends in testifying at the trial and calling world attention to it is especially well done", stating that though readers may know the story of Till, Crowe adds "cultural and human contexts". [5] The Cooperative Children's Book Center wrote, "Author Chris Crowe succinctly recounts the story based largely on news accounts of the time and published interviews with many of the key players." [6]
The book won an American Library Association award for Best Book for Young Adults in 2004. [7] The same year, it won the Jane Addams Peace Association Honor Book Award for Older Children. [8]
Laura Jane Addams was an American settlement activist, reformer, social worker, sociologist, public administrator, philosopher, and author. She was a leader in the history of social work and women's suffrage in the United States. Addams co-founded Hull House, one of America's most famous settlement houses, in Chicago, Illinois, providing extensive social services to poor, largely immigrant families. In 1910, Addams was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree from Yale University, becoming the first woman to receive an honorary degree from the school. In 1920, she was a co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Hull House was a settlement house in Chicago, Illinois, that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Located on the Near West Side of Chicago, Hull House, named after the original house's first owner Charles Jerald Hull, opened to serve recently arrived European immigrants. By 1911, Hull House had expanded to 13 buildings. In 1912, the Hull House complex was completed with the addition of a summer camp, the Bowen Country Club. With its innovative social, educational, and artistic programs, Hull House became the standard bearer for the movement; by 1920, it grew to approximately 500 settlement houses nationally.
Emmett Louis Till was an African American teenager who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery store. The brutality of his murder and the acquittal of his killers drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon of the civil rights movement.
Getting Away with Murder may refer to:
William Bradford Huie was an American writer, investigative reporter, editor, national lecturer, and television host. His credits include 21 books that sold over 30 million copies worldwide. In addition to writing 14 bestsellers, he wrote hundreds of articles that appeared in all of the major magazines and newspapers of the day.
The Jane Addams Children's Book Award is given annually to a children's book published the preceding year that advances the causes of peace and social equality. The awards have been presented annually since 1953. They were previously given jointly by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and the Jane Addams Peace Association, but are now presented solely by the Jane Addams Peace Association.
Deborah Hopkinson is an American writer of over seventy children's books, primarily historical fiction, nonfiction and picture books.
Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley was an American educator and activist. She was the mother of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old teenager murdered in Mississippi on August 28, 1955, after accusations that he had whistled at a white grocery store cashier named Carolyn Bryant. For Emmett's funeral in Chicago, Mamie Till insisted that the casket containing his body be left open, because, in her words, "I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby."
Jacqueline Woodson is an American writer of books for children and adolescents. She is best known for Miracle's Boys, and her Newbery Honor-winning titles Brown Girl Dreaming, After Tupac and D Foster, Feathers, and Show Way. After serving as the Young People's Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017, she was named the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, by the Library of Congress, for 2018 to 2019. Her novel Another Brooklyn was shortlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction. She won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2018. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2020.
Christopher Everett Crowe is an American professor of English and English education at Brigham Young University (BYU) specializing in young adult literature. In addition to his academic work, Crowe also writes books for the young-adult market, including Mississippi Trial, 1955.
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Rafael López is an internationally recognized illustrator and artist. To reflect the lives of all young people, his illustrations bring diverse characters to children's books. As a children's book illustrator, he has received three Pura Belpré Award medals from the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), and REFORMA in 2020 for Dancing Hands: How Teresa Carreño Played the Piano for President Lincoln,Drum Dream Girl in 2016 and Book Fiesta! in 2010. He created the National Book Festival Poster for the Library of Congress and was a featured book festival speaker at this event.
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Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice is a 2009 young adult nonfiction book by Phillip Hoose, recounting the experiences of Claudette Colvin in Montgomery, Alabama, during the Civil Rights Movement.
Mississippi Trial, 1955 is a historical fiction young adult novel by American author Chris Crowe, published in 2002. Set in Mississippi in 1955, the novel tells the true story of the abduction and murder of African-American teenaged boy Emmett Till as well as the trial of his murderers through the point of view of Till's fictionalized white friend Hiram Hillburn. The novel received mixed, but mostly positive reviews and won the International Reading Association Children's Book Award for Young Adult Fiction in 2003.
Mildred Pitts Walter is an American children's book writer, known for her works featuring African-American protagonists. Walter has written over 20 books for young readers, including fiction and nonfiction. Several of her books have won or been named to the honor list of the Coretta Scott King Awards. A native of Louisiana who later moved to Denver, Walter was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1996. She published her autobiography, Something Inside So Strong: Life in Pursuit of Choice, Courage, and Change, in 2019.
Tanya Lee Stone is an American author of children's and young adult books. She writes narrative nonfiction for middle-grade students and young adults, as well as nonfiction picture books. Her stories often center women and people of color.
When Stars Are Scattered is a nonfiction young adult graphic novel written by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed, illustrated by Victoria Jamieson and Iman Geddy, and published April 14, 2020, by Dial Books.
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Ghost Boys is a 2018 middle-grade novel by Jewell Parker Rhodes. Set in Chicago, the novel follows the story of Jerome, a 12-year-old black boy who is shot and killed by a white police officer before coming back as a ghost. Emmett Till, a black boy who was murdered in 1955, features as another ghost in the text. Rhodes' novel has themes of racism and socio-economic injustice that are aimed at a younger audience.