Rise Up! by Crystal M. Fleming

RISE UP! by Crystal M. Fleming is about “How You Can Join the Fight Against White Supremacy” and has been named to School Library Journal’s best non-fiction books of 2021. This text, recommended grades 6 and up, clearly has an action orientation. It begins with a section on (Un)learning Racism, explores what white supremacy is, and moves on to chapters about the media and sports. Fleming bolsters her arguments with discussions of colonization, Indigenous genocide, capitalism and transatlantic slavery. She writes simply, offering questions for her readers to contemplate (e.g., what assumptions have you made about other people as a result of their race?) and encourages these steps: Make a lifelong commitment to antiracism; Build relationships across racial and ethnic lines; Speak up against racist ideas, images, or behaviors; Support intersectional justice (fighting other forms of discrimination); and Get political. As such, some readers may find the book to be controversial, but Fleming supports her scholarship with extensive notes (over 25% of the text) which will be of interest to students, particularly those in American Studies, American History and Civics classes. RISE UP! received starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, and School Library Journal.

We are adding to our collection several other recent titles which appear on the School Library Journal list, including Yoo’s From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry about discrimination against Asian Americans; Sandler’s Picturing a Nation with photographs from the Great Depression era; and Magoon’s Revolution in Our Time (a National Book Award Finalist) about the Black Panther Party. We already own Stamped by Jason Reynolds, and, in regards to climate change, we have the adult versions of Story of More by Hope Jahren and On Fire by Naomi Klein.