Deborah Hopkinson “Steamboat School” (Jump At the Sun, 2016)

New Books in African American Studies · Feb 15, 2017 · 26m

In Steamboat School (Jump at the Sun, 2016), an historical picture book based on true events, author Deborah Hopkinson recounts the story of Reverend John Berry Meachum’s brave act to defy an 1847 Missouri law designed to prohibit African American children from attending school. This fictional account is told from the point of view of a young boy who is at first a student at Meachum’s secret school, which held in a church basement. But when the Missouri law is passed and it is no longer safe to continue teaching the students there, Meachum enlists his students and decides to build a steamboat…