Blood Brother: Jonathan Daniels and His Sacrifice for Civil Rights
by Rich Wallace, Sandra Neil Wallace
Calkins Creek (September 13, 2016)
Audience: Grades 5 and up
Nonfiction * Biography * Social Activists
Official Educator's Guide
IndieBound | WorldCat
Description from GoodReads:
Jonathan Daniels, a white seminary student from New Hampshire, traveled to Selma, Alabama, in 1965 to help with voter registration of black residents. After the voting rights marches, he remained in Alabama, in the area known as “Bloody Lowndes,” an extremely dangerous area for white freedom fighters, to assist civil rights workers. Five months later, Jonathan Daniels was shot and killed while saving the life of Ruby Sales, a black teenager. Through Daniels’s poignant letters, papers, photographs, and taped interviews, authors Rich Wallace and Sandra Neil Wallace explore what led Daniels to the moment of his death, the trial of his murderer, and how these events helped reshape both the legal and political climate of Lowndes County and the nation.
Official Book Trailer:
Quick thoughts on this book:
Sometimes a book brings to the forefront a person that you have read about but never explored in depth. Blood Brother: Jonathan Daniels and His Sacrifice for Civil Rights is just that book for me. The Wallaces in Blood Brother gives voice and depth to the work of a young white seminary student who traveled to Alabama and played a significant role in the fight for Civil Rights.
Despite a number of books that I have read about the Civil Rights Movement over the years, I have never really thought about who was the man who gave his life so that Ruby Sales would live. And nowhere had I made the connection that Jonathan Daniels was from Keene, New Hampshire. Of course that may seem like a small detail, maybe even irrelevant, but as someone who attended college in Keene, New Hampshire, I should have known this fact.
Blood Brother provides readers with an abundance of primary source information in the form of quotes, news articles, photos and more to bring alive the narrative of Daniels life and work.
Additional reading: Black Civil Rights Activist Recalls White Ally Who Took A Shotgun Blast for Her (Washington Post, August 2015). Look for Blood Brother at you local indie bookstore or community library.
About the authors:
Rich Wallace has written more than three dozen novels for children and teens. His first novel, Wrestling Sturbridge, was selected by the American Library Association as one of the top 100 YA books of the twentieth century. His recent children’s nonfiction includes the acclaimed Babe Conquers the World, co-written with his wife, Sandra Neil Wallace. He lives in New Hampshire.
Sandra Neil Wallace had a lengthy career as a news anchor and ESPN sportscaster before writing realistic fiction and nonfiction for young readers. A pioneer in the journalism field, she was the first woman to cover the National Hockey League on network TV. Selected as a promising new voice in children’s literature by The Horn Book, Wallace’s titles have been named to state and national awards lists including Bank Street College’s Best Children’s Book of the Year, ALA-YALSA Quick Picks, and Booklist’s Top 10 Sports Books for Youth.
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