The Story of J­uneteenth

PreS-Gr 2–On June 19th, 1865, the last enslaved people in Texas learned they were free. Juneteenth celebrations commemorate the day with parades, music, dancing, and food. This nonfiction board book provides a simply worded, age-appropriate explanation of the holiday’s origin for toddlers. Williamson follows the trend of introducing high-interest, informational topics in the board book format, comparable to the Who Was? biography board book series. Jenai’s vibrant cartoon-style illustrations work in unison with the text to support and deliver additional information about Juneteenth not provided by the text alone. While the board book format may not appeal to beginning readers, the arrangement of just one to two lines of text per page, large and clear font, simple sentence structure, and distinct text and illustration separation forces a comparison of this title to more advanced nonfiction about Juneteenth, such as Maximilian Smith’s The History of Juneteenth and R.J. Bailey’s Juneteenth.