A Wreath for Emmett Till
by Marilyn Nelson and Philippe Lardy (Houghton Mifflin)
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Presents fifteen interlinked sonnets to pay tribute to Emmitt Till, a fourteen-year-old African American boy who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 for supposedly whistling at a white woman, and whose murderers were acquitted. The brutality of his murder, the open-casket funeral, and the acquittal of the men tried for the crime drew wide media attention. Award-winning poet Marilyn Nelson reminds us of the boy whose fate helped spark the civil rights movement. This martyr's wreath, woven from a little-known but sophisticated form of poetry, challenges us to speak out against modern-day injustices--to speak what we see. Newbery Honor-winning poet Nelson offers an evocative tribute to a 14-year-old boy whose lynching in 1955 helps spark the civil rights movement.