The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights by Steven Sheinkin (Booktalk)

Imagine you are in the Navy, and it is your job to handle explosives: big explosives, lots of them, and quickly. You load them onto the Navy's ships, and you have had no real training in safety measures. Scary job, huh? If those explosives and munitions explode, you are dead. There is zero room for error.

Page 35 in The Port Chicago 50.

That was the job of some African-American Navy men in World War II. They got the lousy jobs in segregated units, and this had been a sad, ongoing fact in our country's history. It was unfair and prejudiced, yet many black men still wanted to serve their country, even if meant digging ditches, carrying explosives, working in the kitchen, and cleaning bathrooms and kitchens. They did not get the more "glamorous" jobs given to white men, and the only factor was their skin color.

But let's get back to the explosives at the Port Chicago base. I have some bad news: want to guess what it is? The explosives did blow up, killing 320 men, injuring almost 400 men, destroying the pier and the ships in the area.

The devastation was unbelievable and tragic. Lives were lost and ruined. Obviously, many of the men killed were the African Americans who handled the explosives. All the witnesses died.

Have you heard the expression "to add insult to injury"? What does it mean? {Let a student explain.} The surviving men were being asked to do exactly the same work in a different location: handling and loading ammunition - highly explosive - onto ships. I don't blame them for not wanting to do it, but the Navy did, and it accused them of mutiny, a deeply serious charge. Read all about their fight in The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights by Steven Sheinkin. Booktalk to grades 5-12. National Book Award finalist.

Booktalk: The Rock and the River (Virginia Readers' Choice)

It is really, really tough to be an African-American teenager in 1968. Sam’s father is a personal friend of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Sam is used to life as a Civil Rights Movement child. He’s marched in civil rights marches, listened to passionate speeches, and protested for equal treatment of blacks and whites. Sam’s older brother, Stick, has joined an organization called the Black Panthers, and Sam’s father is not happy about this. You know, it’s awful when people in your family are fighting about something. Ironically, Sam’s father and Sam’s brother are both firm believers in equal civil rights for blacks and whites, but they disagree on how this equality should be achieved. Guess who’s caught in the middle of this family dispute? Right, Sam. But what do you do when, like Sam, you repeatedly witness white police officers unfairly beating and charging blacks with crimes they didn’t commit? Do you side with your dad, who says deal with it nonviolently? Or do you side with your brother’s Black Panther friends, who say to fight back? In this case, the wrong choice could cost you your life. The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon.

The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon. 290 p. Aladdin: 2009. Booktalk to middle school, high school. Personal recommendation: while I enjoyed this book, it does have some traumatic scenes, especially the ending. I would not recommend this to middle schoolers whom I felt were not emotionally read for it.