Smell of Roses

Johnson, Angela. Sweet Smell of Roses. New York: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, 2004.

Sweet Smell of Roses is a story about an African American girl and her sister, who sneak out of their house to attend a civil rights march on Charlotte Street. As they approach a crowd is gathering listening to Martin Luther King Jr. speaking about equality. While the children join the march, they experience the segregation between blacks and whites as adults scream, “You are not right. Equality can’t be yours”.

Johnson narrative includes a vast amount of history, while expressing the time period through a child’s perceptive. John demonstrates adults as well as children were fighting for equality and experiencing segregation. I believe Taylor addresses the negative impact segregation caused both on children and adults. The book not only demonstrates equality between blacks and whites, but between adults and children. The picture book depicts a struggling time for America; however, it demonstrates how blacks including children were standing up for their rights as human beings.