Monday, September 20, 2010

Firebrands - Portraits from the Americas

(Microcosm) In answer to the Texas textbook mafia controlling what kids get to learn in school this is a collection of short, deftly illustrated biographies of American (including South American) heroes and martyrs of the left, including Angela Davis, Sitting Bull, Ida B. Wells, Audrey Lord, Pablo Neruda, and dozens more. This include unlikely entries (Tupac, Studs Terkel), controversial figures (Fred Hapton, John Brown) and mostly people you have not heard of but will learn about here. Whether kids will read this is another question, and the fact that they sometimes use the same kind of one sided history as their right wing rivals makes this imperfect, but what's perfect? And I love the drawings.

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