Module 11: Sit-In-How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney

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Book Summary: Four college students took a seat at Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960. Martin Luther King Jr.’s peaceful words of “We must meet hate with love” echoed in their heads as they sat in a restaurant and ordered food that they knew would not be served to them because of the prejudice against their skin color in a “Whites only” restaurant. However, no matter how badly they were treated, they refused to give up politely requesting their right to be served food. Soon, many other people, whites included, joined in on this peaceful protest during the restaurant sit-in. By working together for what was right, these students would soon pave the way for integration and rights for all.

APA Reference of Book: Pinkney, A. D., & Pinkney, J. B. (2010). Sit-in: How four friends stood up by sitting down. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company.

Impressions: The style in which this book was written was interesting to me. Important quotations from Martin Luther King Jr. or important ideals that the students fought for were in a much larger, colored text to emphasize the importance of the changes that these students were making for society. The book was written almost like a “food recipe” for creating freedom, peace and equality for all. It is a great book for teaching about the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement, and the timeline presented in the book is helpful to readers in understanding the background information and setting for the historical story.

Professional Review: Rochman, H. (2010). Sit-in: How four friends stood up by sitting down. The Booklist, 106(11), 60.

Grades 2-4. This compelling picture book is based on the historic sit-in 50 years ago by four college students who tried to integrate a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. Food-related wordplay adds layers to the free verse, as in the lines about the protesters’ recipe for integration: “Combine black with white / to make sweet justice.” The double-page spreads in watercolor and thick ink lines show both the scene in Woolworth’s and across America as blacks and whites organize sit-ins and watch coverage of protests on TV. Finally, the young people at the counter get what they order, “served to them exactly the way they wanted it––well done.” The recipe metaphors are repetitive, but at the core of the exciting narrative are scenes that show the difficulty of facing hatred: “tougher than any school test.” Closing pages discuss the role of adults, including Ella Baker and then presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and include a detailed civil rights time line, “a final helping” about the historic struggle, and a bibliography. Even young children will grasp the powerful, elemental, and historic story of those who stood up to oppressive authority and changed the world.

Library Uses: This book can be used to continue in a thematic reading unit on the Civil Rights Movement. Students can focus on the character motivations for the sit-ins in the 1960s and create their own reader's theater enactment of civil rights moments.