Africville
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Details
https://bookclubs.scholastic.ca/en/-africville-/49208189-cec-ca.htmlDescription
When a young girl visits the site of Africville in Halifax, she imagines what the community was once like.
Good For:
Celebrating Black History Month, Learning About Canadian History Through Fictional Characters, Award-Winning Picture Books, Captivating Illustrations
Topics and Themes:
Nova Scotia, Canada, Communities, Diversity, Black History Month
Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award
Finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award, Young People's Literature
When a young girl visits the site of Africville, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the stories she's heard from her family come to mind. She imagines what the community was once like -the brightly painted houses nestled into the hillside, the field where boys played football, the pond where all the kids went rafting, the bountiful fishing, the huge bonfires. Coming out of her reverie, she visits the present-day park and the sundial where her great- grandmother's name is carved in stone, and celebrates a summer day at the annual Africville Reunion/Festival.
Africville was a vibrant Black community for more than 150 years. But even though its residents paid municipal taxes, they lived without running water, sewers, paved roads and police, fire-truck and ambulance services. Over time, the city located a slaughterhouse, a hospital for infectious disease, and even the city garbage dump nearby. In the 1960s, city officials decided to demolish the community, moving people out in city dump trucks and relocating them in public housing.
Today, Africville has been replaced by a park, where former residents and their families gather each summer to remember their community.
About the Author/Illustrator
Shauntay Grant is a descendant of Black Loyalists, Jamaican Maroons, and Black Refugees who migrated to Canada some two hundred years ago. A writer and performance artist, she has won the Joseph S. Stauffer Prize, and she has published several picture books. She lives in Halifax, Canada. Eva Campbell is an artist and illustrator who teaches visual art. She has exhibited her work in Canada, the US, the UK, Barbados, and Ghana. Eva won the Children's Africana Book Award for her illustrations in The Matatu. She also illustrated Africville by Shauntay Grant, winner of the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award and the Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration, and a Governor General's Literary Award finalist. Eva lives in Victoria, Canada.