I had heard of "Black Wall Street" without actually knowing what all it encompassed. Tim Madigan has written such a wonderfully detailed history of not just Black Wall Street in its prime but also what led to its creation, the sacrifices made to create it, and its impact. Madigan writes in a way that even reluctant nonfiction readers will struggle to put this book down. I highly recommend it for every libraray!

I haven't had a chance to finish this yet, but already I can tell that I will be using it next year in my class. It is written so that Middle Schoolers can relate and understand, while also explaining an important historical event, that is unfortunately absent from most curriculum in the US.

Great book, I can't wait to finish it. And I look forward to reading it (maybe not in its entirety, but at least several substantial excerpts) with my students next year!

Only in the last few years did I learn of the Tulsa Massacre on Black Wall street but since then I have watched documentaries and read several other books about he topic. I read this book because as a teacher I loved the idea of this book having been adapted for my high school students. However, no amount of adaptation can damper to horrors of this event, 300+ African American men and women killed, miles of black businesses and wealth destroyed and the gigantic coverup by a city, a state and a nation. As a reader you want to believe this is all blown out of proportion, it must be exaggerated because the sheer HORROR of this attack is so palpable and because it is hard to believe humans could do something so awful to someone else, but it is true and it did happen. We also want to believe that this horrible human behavior is all in the past but is it, just look at our news channels and we know it isn’t. Stories like this deserve and need to be told, about then men and women who lost everything and those who had the strength and tenacity to rebuild again in the face of such abject hatred. This book will certainly be joining my classroom in the fall.

I have not read the book upon which this edition is based, but Hillary Beard has adapted an accessible historical informational text about Tim Madigan's The Burning; I recommend it for all school libraries. I had not read much about the Tulsa Race Massacre and Black Wall Street until recent years, unfortunately, so I learned a lot more about it by reading this book. It is presented in such a way that younger readers will be engaged in the storytelling while they are learning the tragic and violent history in great detail. The book is probably better fit for older high school--not because of the topic, but because of the complexity of the event. The book goes back and provides context for the Massacre regarding some of the people and events that led to the creation of Greenwood. It also follows some of the events afterward and more recent times. Because of this, there is a lot of history and people to cover, and that can sometimes get confusing even for someone like myself who had read a book or two about the topic already. I definitely recommend this text. Many thanks to the publishers and Net Galley for the advanced copy.

I had never heard of this historic event until I read the historical fiction YA book "Dreamland Burning" by Jennifer Latham (which I highly recommend). "The Burning" is a well-researched and thorough non-fiction account of the burning and destruction of Greenwood during the Tulsa massacre, as well as providing follow up information about the determination of the Black citizens of the city as they rebuilt their homes, businesses and churches without any help from outsiders. While the prose in this book is a bit "dry", the information is captivating and would appeal to high school students interested in learning more about this era in history.