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Title: Rosa's Bus

Author: Fabrizio Silei

Translator: Sian Williams

Illustrator: Maurizio A. C. Quarello

Publisher: Darf Children's Books

Date Published: 2022

Format: Hardback

Genre:

Book Category: Picture Book

Age Range: 9-11

Original Title: First published in Italian by Orecchio Acerbo Editore, Italy, 2011

Country of Origin: Italy

Rosa's Bus

by Fabrizio Silei
Age Range: 9-11

Grandpa is taking his grandson Ben to visit the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan. Ben thinks Grandpa has lost the plot – “We’ve come hours and hours by bus to see some old cars” he thinks and he really can’t understand why they are standing in front of an old bus!

Ben gradually learns that this is no ordinary bus. One day in December 1955, Rosa Parks was travelling on this very same bus to work in her hometown of Montgomery, Alabama when she was ordered to give up her seat to a white passenger. She refused and was eventually removed and arrested for civil disobedience in violating Alabama’s segregation laws. However, her calm and brave stand against racism triggered a boycott of public buses for 382 days as black passengers chose to walk rather than take the bus.

Grandpa wants Ben to understand the significance of that day. He knows the story well because he was also on the bus but did not have Rosa’s courage to make a stand in the face of prejudice. He needs Ben to grasp the importance of showing courage, standing up for what you believe in and, in doing so, how ordinary people can change the world.

Rosa’s Bus by Italian author Fabrizio Silei, with a beautiful translation by Siân Williams, is a powerful, original, thought-provoking picture book. Narrated by Ben there is a lovely mix of humour, in the relationship between grandfather and grandson, and the serious retelling of an important historical event that led to change.

As well as the main story about Rosa, Silei also highlights the Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation making life difficult for people because of the colour of their skin and the sinister Klu Klux Klan, but it is done in a way that is easy for young readers to understand. The accompanying illustrations by Maurizio A. C. Quarello are beautiful and powerful, recording every detail of Rosa's momentous and brave stand.

A heartwarming retelling of an important moment in history during the civil rights movement.

Fabrizio Silei is the author of many books, essays, novels and short stories for children and young adults and refers to himself as a “researcher of human stories and events”. In 2014 he received the Andersen “Writer of the Year” award.

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an activist in the civil rights movement in the USA. Rosa was released from custody almost straightaway thanks to a lawyer and the help of a young pastor Martin Luther King Jr although she had to pay a fine of ten dollars. Her brave action resulted in the Supreme Court declaring racial discrimination on transport unconstitutional in 1956. The United States Congress honoured her as "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement". Parks became a National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) activist in 1943, participating in several high-profile civil rights campaigns. Parks's act of defiance and the Montgomery bus boycott became important symbols of the civil rights movement.

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