Books › Leon's Story (Sunburst Books)
Leon's Story (Sunburst Books)
First published 2000 · 107 pages
An intimate, oral history-style memoir that lays bare the brutal realities of the Jim Crow South alongside the unbreakable strength of family.
What it feels like
Reading this memoir feels like sitting on a porch listening to an elder recount the profound struggles and quiet triumphs of their life. Because it was adapted from recorded interviews, the prose has an incredibly intimate, conversational rhythm that makes the harrowing realities of Jim Crow-era North Carolina feel immediate and deeply personal. The pace is steady, moving through vignettes that balance the dread-soaked atmosphere of systemic racism and Klan violence with the warmth of a fiercely loving family. It is an unflinching but ultimately hopeful journey. Readers who appreciate direct, unadorned storytelling and firsthand accounts of the civil rights movement will find themselves entirely absorbed by this quiet yet monumental testament to resilience.
- Mood
- somber
- intimate
- harrowing
- hopeful
- Tone
- earnest
- reflective
- unflinching
- conversational
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- coming of age under oppression · family bonds · systemic racism · finding one's voice · courage against hatred
- The writing
- Direct, unadorned, and deeply conversational, preserving the authentic oral storytelling cadence of the author.
- The arc
- Moves from the painful realities of childhood segregation and fear to a place of empowered collective action and enduring resilience.
- Who it's for
- Readers seeking an accessible, intimate firsthand account of the Jim Crow South and the civil rights movement.
Content notes
- racial slurs
- racially motivated violence
- Ku Klux Klan
- systemic oppression
- childhood trauma
About the book
"Leon's Story is a powerful, wonderful thing!" -- Nikki Giovanni
I remember that as a young boy I used to look in the mirror and I would curse my color, my blackness. But in those days they didn't call you "black." They didnt say "minority." They called us "colored" or "nigger."
Leon Tillage grew up the son of a sharecropper in a small town in North Carolina. Told in vignettes, this is his story about walking four miles to the school for black children, and watching a school bus full of white children go past. It's about his being forced to sit in the balcony at the movie theater, hiding all night when the Klansmen came riding, and worse. Much worse.
But it is also the story of a strong family and the love that bound them together. And, finally, it's about working to change an oppressive existence by joining the civil rights movement. Edited from recorded interviews conducted by Susan L. Roth, Leon's story will stay with readers long after they have finished his powerful account.
Leon's Story is the winner of the 1998 Boston Globe - Horn Book Award for Nonfiction.
Horn Book Magazine Fanfare List, Carter G. Woodson Book Award (NCSS), American Library Association Notable Children's Books, ALA Best Books for Young Adults, ALA Notable Children's Books, American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults, Booklist Editors' Choice, Boston Globe - Horn Book Award, IRA Teachers' Choices
Description from Open Library.
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