By: Carole Boston Weatherford
Illustrated by: Frank Morrison
Scott County Library picture book
Published: 2023
Genre: children's picture book, history
I saw this while working at Mackin and was curious enough to request it from the library. This is a beautifully written and drawn book about a heart-breakingly sad time in our history.
As a black girl in the national spelling bee in 1936, MacNolia wasn't allowed to stay in the same hotel as the other contestants because of her skin color. She and another black girl weren't allowed to sit at the same table as the white kids for the contest. It was almost hard to read this book thinking of how hard it must have been for her to be treated so awfully. What a strong and smart young woman she was!
Then in the afterword, we find that she couldn't afford to go to college after graduating high school and became a domestic servant for a doctor in Ohio. She died of cancer at age 53. So incredibly sad.
