Book Review–Enough! 20 Protesters Who Changed America

I picked up this book due to the cover, because this silent protest at the Olympics is one of my favorite events in history, and the idea of reading a picture book about it was intriguing. When I read it, I discovered that it did not share the information in a way that I expected it to, but it was still informative nonetheless.

This book, written by Emily Easton and beautifully illustrated by Ziyue Chen, goes through protests made in America, going back as far as the Boston Tea Party and as current as Colin Kapernick. I appreciate the wide range of protests included in the book, it helps the reader see that protesting can look a lot of different ways. However, the language in the book is very simplistic, like one sentence for each protest simplistic. So while that makes for an easy read, it also (hopefully) invites lots of questions. For example, while I know what “America says, ‘Time’s Up” means, children reading the book may not.

To be fair, Easton does have some pages in the back of the book that gives more detail about each event, but a child reading this book independently may not bother with that information.

So, if you do choose to read this book with your children, just be ready to explain some of these powerful protests in more detail to make sure they get the full benefit of this picture book.