Someday Is Now

September 10, 2018
Rhuday-Perkovich offers a sensitive story based on African-American educator and activist Clara Luper, who, in 1958, organized students to take part in a lunch counter sit-in in Oklahoma City. The book conveys Luper’s early awakening to racial inequity: as a child, her father assured her that “someday” she would be permitted to go to the places designated as “whites only.” Luper channeled her energies into teaching black children about history and the power of nonviolent demonstration, and she joined them in demanding to be served at Katz Drug Store. Rhuday-Perkovich integrates historical content into her prose, though she takes some liberties with undocumented lines of dialogue: “All of these people died for our freedom.... We need to really get busy and do something for our country.” Johnson’s stylized work features blocky figures against a palette of orange, yellow, and chartreuse. An authentic tribute to a brave and compassionate activist. Ages 6–9.

Starred review from October 1, 2018

Gr 3-5-This nonfiction picture book follows Clara Luper from her childhood to her mentorship of students in nonviolent resistance during the 1950s and 60s. As an Oklahoma City school teacher, Luper wrote a play for her pupils, who then toured cross-country with her and witnessed the contrast between the integrated Northern cities they visited and the still segregated Southern cities they performed in, and were subsequently motivated to affect positive change in their communities back home, including sit-ins. Rhuday-Perkovich's decision to include Luper's struggle between wanting to keep her students safe and wanting them to act humanizes this civil rights hero, and makes her choices more relatable and meaningful, as does the author's powerful word choice in describing the abusive drugstore customers not as anonymous bullies, but as spitting mothers and screaming fathers. This reminder that the struggle for equality is just as much mental as physical adds a welcome profundity. Johnson has illustrated the narrative in a tableau style, with a bold yellow- and blue-based color palette. The focal points are the expressive outsized faces of the cast of characters, who are all carefully posed. Unembellished backgrounds in muted tones make these characters (and several "whites only" signs) stand out all the more boldly. Back matter includes a brief biography of Luper and explains the four steps of nonviolent resistance depicted in the book. VERDICT Rhuday-Perkovich powerfully teaches young readers that standing up sometimes means standing out. A top addition to nonfiction collections.-Lauren Younger, Nicholson Memorial Library, Garland, TX

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

A teacher helps her students protest U.S. segregation with sit-ins. In the 1930s, young Clara Luper notices a "Whites Only" park in her Oklahoma town. Her father, who is crying, promises her that "someday will be real soon," when segregation will no longer exclude black Americans. Rhuday-Perkovich commendably explains the concept of segregation for young readers, emphasizing that it is "separate and unequal" (printed in bold, like other key points). Grown and become a teacher, Clara stresses that "education meant participation." Performing a play she wrote in New York City, Clara and her students experience integrated facilities and realize "in some places, someday was now." Back in Oklahoma City, they decide to combat segregation using the four steps of nonviolence: "investigation, negotiation, education, and demonstration." During sit-ins at a lunch counter, the young activists' white friends and neighbors turn to enemies. Johnson uses facial expressions and stains on clothes to effectively convey stress and tension in a manner sensitive to readers unfamiliar with the violence of the civil rights movement. Johnson's ability to depict great emotion through something as simple as a teardrop is laudable, as is the intentional portrayal of the spectrum of shades found among black people.Not only does this book highlight an important civil rights activist, it can serve as an introduction to child activism as well as the movement itself. Valuable. (author's notes, glossary) (Picture book/biography. 5-9)

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. (Online Review)

November 1, 2018
Grades 1-3 Although the lunch counter sit-ins by college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, are better known, a year and a half earlier, in 1958, educator Clara Luper and her young students were working to desegregate a chain of restaurants in Oklahoma City. Luper's story begins with her earliest realizations about inequality, including the poor treatment of her WWI vet father. As an adult, she channeled her activism through teaching and as a youth leader for the NAACP. After staging a play she'd written, her student cast decided to try and convince white shop owners to desegregate. That didn't work, so they went to a local drugstore and tried to order Cokes. When refused, they sat down. Throughout the book, the phrase "someday was NOW" reverberates. With determination and perseverance, despite shouts and spit, the counter (and others owned by the chain) were desegregated. The book's singular illustrations have a flat intensity that works well with the matter-of-fact telling. Yet, the story's drama is inherent, and readers may well be inspired by the difference people?even young ones?can make.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)