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Nancy Keane's | Booktalks -- Quick and Simple | |
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Barasch,
Lynne.
KNOCKIN’ ON WOOD STARRING PEG LEG BATES New York : Lee & Low Books, Inc., 2004 IL K-3, RL 4.5 ISBN 1584301708 |
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If you are driving down the main street leading into Fountain Inn , South Carolina , you’ll see a sign declaring the town to be the home of Peg Leg Bates. You may wonder, as I did when I first moved to S.C., who is Peg Leg Bates. The locals will be happy to tell you all about Clayton Bates. They’d tell you about the son of a sharecropper born there in 1907, a boy born too poor for shoes, but with a love of dancing. To avoid working in the fields, he’d dance in towns for coins. That wasn’t enough to help out the family finances, so when he was 12, he went to work at the town cottonseed mill. On his third day of employment, Clayton’s left leg was caught in a machine and had to be amputated. No one thought he’d ever walk, let alone dance, again. So, how did this poor, disabled black child from rural SC find international fame and fortune? You’ll either have to run in to a local to finish his tale, or read Knockin’ on Wood, Starring Peg Leg Bates by Lynne Barasch. (Prepared by: Deborah Wolfe, SCASL Children’s Book Awards) |
| SUBJECTS:
Bates, Peg Leg.
Tap dancers. People with disabilities. African Americans -- Biography. |
