"In this riveting autobiography, Baltimore janitor Leon Walter Tillage reflects on his life with all the vitality of a storyteller gathering his audience around him . . . . Roth's dramatic black-and-white collages pay homage to the power of Leon's story, a tale that does more in its gentle way to expose the horrors of racism than most works of fiction ever could."--"Publishers Weekly." Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

In this riveting autobiography, Baltimore janitor Leon Walter Tillage reflects on his life with all the vitality of a storyteller gathering his audience around him. He recalls his childhood as an African American sharecropper's son in 1940s North Carolina: "Once you got on a farm you could work a lifetime and never get out of debt." His mother made soup with "pot likker," the liquid left over from cooking collard greens for the Johnsons (the white owners of the farm they worked). His job in the tobacco field was to walk behind his father's plow with a stick and flip up the tobacco; "the dirt would smother it, you see." Each afternoon Leon walked home from school with his friends, and often the white kids' bus would stop so they could throw stones: "So what you would do when they were throwing stones at you, you would start screaming and hollering and begging. They liked that...." These episodes have an unusual immediacy because the book is edited from recorded interviews conducted by Roth, whose daughter heard Tillage at a school assembly; oral histories have a way of stripping away the sentiment and going straight for the moments that are etched forever in the teller's memories. Tillage's words describe a time, only a few short decades back, when Klansmen and Jim Crow laws ruled the South. But he also tells of marching for his rights and of his own triumphs: "There were bad times, but you know, there were rejoicing times, too." Roth's (Martha and the Dragon) dramatic black-and-white collages pay homage to the power of Leon's story, a tale that does more in its gentle way to expose the horrors of racism than most works of fiction ever could. Ages 8-up. Copyright 1997 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Gr 4 Up--This is one man's story, but one that was shared by thousands of African Americans across the United States before, during, and after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Tillage describes the trials of sharecropping; trying to get an education in an inferior school; and walking a long distance to school while watching a bus full of white children pass him by. The author witnessed the murder of his father when a group of drunken white teenagers ran over the man. What price do you place on a human life? The father of the driver gave Mrs. Tillage 100 dollars and told his son to apologize. He never did. There was never any legal action taken. The events are succinctly and honestly expressed in the author's first-person account. Roth's monochromatic collage art, placed before the beginning of each chapter, documents the sparseness of Tillage's life and its boundaries: home, church, school, work, and the balcony at the movie theater. The last story, "Marching," explains the role of many groups of southerners, representing a number of ethnic groups who supported and helped the marchers. The afterword and note about the genesis of the book are important addenda.Marie Wright, University Library, Indianapolis, IN Copyright 1997 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Gr. 4 and up. With quiet restraint, Tillage tells of growing up black in the Jim Crow South, the son of North Carolina sharecroppers. His voice is direct, the words are simple. There is no rhetoric, no commentary, no bitterness, just the facts of his personal story set against the segregation of the time. At home, there were his supportive religious family and no political resistance ("It was all part of survival"). Outside, there were inferior schools, separate entrances, the back of the bus, constant harassment, the terror of the Klan. The boy saw his father chased by drunk white kids in a car and run over, twice, and nothing done about the murder. Then came the 1950s, and Tillage joined the civil rights movement and marched past police and firemen and dogs and Klansmen: "But we kept on and on." Now he is a custodian at a Baltimore school, where he tells his story at assembly as part of the curriculum. In an afterword, Roth explains how she taped Tillage's account and edited it with his participation. There is none of the rambling of oral history. The small book is barely 100 pages long, including Roth's black-and-white collage illustrations between chapters. This quiet drama will move readers of all ages (including adult literacy students) and may encourage them to record their own family stories. (Reviewed October 1, 1997)0374343799Hazel Rochman From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.