Leeper, A. (2004 ). Juneteenth: a day to celebrate freedom from slavery. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, Inc.
This book describes the origins, the celebration and the growth of an African American holiday - Juneteenth. Juneteenth is a holiday to celebrate the last day that slaves found out they were free in Texas. The holiday is celebrated with parades, barbecues and red soda pop (it never explained the significance of red soda pop other than it was part of the first Juneteenth celebration. It may have been a luxury item in the time of slavery and something slaves couldn't normally drink, but once free they could. Red soda pop was referred to multiple times as part of the celebration).
Informational Text - chapter book for grade 2-5. It contains mostly photographs and maps to support the text.
When telling a friend about my project on reading a book a day, she told me to go to the Juneteenth celebration here in Winston-Salem. Growing up in Connecticut I had never heard of such a celebration and thus felt that if I was going to read an informational text about slavery, I might as well read about information I don't already know about, thus my choice of text. Juneteenth was the day that the slaves in Texas (some of the last slaves still in America) found out about the Emancipation Proclamation that all slaves were free and thus this is a day that African Americans in Texas and other states celebrate their freedom.
This is a great book to use Louise Rosenblatt's transactional theory concept with. There will certainly be students whose families are very involved within the African American community who have heard of and experienced this holiday. There will be others who have never heard of it. It is a great way to just present the word and have people write what it means, what they know about it, etc. I only wish it fell while we were in school to share the celebration with the class.
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