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With Books and Bricks: How Booker T. Washingon Built a School

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With Books and Bricks: How Booker T. Washington Built a School

By Suzanne Slade
Illustrated by Nicole Tadgell
Albert Whitman & Company, 2014. Biography.

Since he was a young child, Booker had been fascinated by books. With the end of slavery, nine-year-old Booker decided to teach himself to read. While working in the mines, he heard about a school for black students 500 miles away in Virginia and journeyed to the school to continue his education. Realizing the importance of sharing his love of learning with others, he moved to Tuskegee, Alabama for a teaching position. Upon arriving, he found that his eager students needed a school building where they could learn and set about to give them just that.

This picture book covers Booker T. Washington’s struggle to build, along with his students, a one room school that eventually became a sprawling campus. A great introduction for children to a man who loved learning and personified determination as he refused to let anything stand in the way of him achieving his dreams.
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