A Long Time Coming: A Lyrical Biography of Race in America from Ona Judge to Barack Obama
- Subject
- African American & Black
- Age
- 9-12 years
- Format
- Hardcover
- Pages
- 336
- Publisher
- Calkins Creek Books
- Size
- 15.8 cm Ă 23.1 cm
- ISBN
- 9781662680663
This YA biography-in-verse of six important Black Americans from different eras, including Ona Judge, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barack Obama, chronicles the diverse ways each fought racism and shows how muchâand how littleâhas changed for Black Americans since our countryâs founding.
Full of daring escapes, deep emotion, and subtle lessons on how racism operates, A LONG TIME COMING reveals the universal importance of its subjectsâ struggles for justice. From freedom seeker Ona Judge, who fled her enslavement by Americaâs first president, to Barack Obama, the first Black president, all of Shepardâs protagonists fight valiantly for justice for themselves and all Black Americans in any way that they can. But it is also a highly personal book, as Shepard â whose maternal grandfather was enslaved â shows how the grand sweep of history has touched his life, reflecting on how much progress has been made against racism, while also exhorting readers to complete the vast work that remains to be done.
Full of daring escapes, deep emotion, and subtle lessons on how racism operates, A LONG TIME COMING reveals the universal importance of its subjectsâ struggles for justice. From freedom seeker Ona Judge, who fled her enslavement by Americaâs first president, to Barack Obama, the first Black president, all of Shepardâs protagonists fight valiantly for justice for themselves and all Black Americans in any way that they can. But it is also a highly personal book, as Shepard â whose maternal grandfather was enslaved â shows how the grand sweep of history has touched his life, reflecting on how much progress has been made against racism, while also exhorting readers to complete the vast work that remains to be done.
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What reviewers said
A School Library Journal Best Book
A Booklist Editors' Choice
A Kirkus Best Book
2024 Kansas NEA Reading Circle List
Texas Topaz Nonfiction Reading List
Finalist, SCBWI Golden Kite Award for Nonfiction Text for Older Readers
Named to the 2024 Capitol Choices list
A Bank Street Best Children's Book
Included on the 2025 ALSC DĂa Reading List
"These narratives will also give young people a new understanding of how the subjects became exceptional forces for racial freedom...Meticulously researched and organized...Shepard creatively argues through captivating poetic history that racial justice is the long struggle in this country and that we are still working toward who ''we' is in this more perfect union. A must Âpurchase."
"Rooting the events presented in documented history, Shepard distills them into concentrated bursts of truth... Christieâs section-heading black-and-white scenes are as starkly powerful as the poems. The information presented is kaleidoscopic rather than comprehensive; readers will come away with clear senses of who these individuals were and what motivated them, while formidable backmatter...provides avenues for them to fill in the gaps. Electrifying."
"In this substantive nonfiction history in verse, Shepherd depicts the lives of six Black Americans who 'tilted the countryâs moral arc toward liberty, freedom, and justice.' The poetry is always engaging, at times unwieldy, at times electric in its power. Highly recommended for both personal reading and curricular study."
âThis is a highly readable work of creative nonfiction told in five story-poemsâflash lines of verse, prose, and quotesâanchored in historical facts The individual poems are impressionistic, and many have a rhythm that would work well when read aloud.â
"In this biography in verse, Shepard presents thoroughly researched portraits of six historical Black figures...Shepard makes each subject both distinct and connected; repetitive phrases and similar stylistic structures thread through the book, underscoring an arc of history that has lurched toward racial justice in fits and starts, taking one step back as many times as it moved forward."
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