Loving vs. Virginia: A Documentary Novel by Patricia Hruby Powell

 

Bibliography: Powell, P. H. (2017). Loving vs. Virginia: A documentary novel of the landmark civil rights case (A. Ojo & M. Andrews, Narrators). Dreamscape Media. Audiobook. Everand.

Plot Summary: Loving vs. Virginia is a story written in verse about Richard and Mildred Loving and their fight to live and love together within the state of Virginia. The story takes place in 1955 in Caroline County, Virginia during the time of segregation. The Loving family spent many years fighting for marriage between races and eventually got their course taken to the Supreme Court. 

Critical Analysis: I listened to this book through the app Everand. The audiobook is narrated in dual points of view, Adenrele Ojo narrates Mildred Loving's (Jeter) point of view and MacLeod Andrews narrates Richard Loving's point of view.

The audio is very clear and both Ojo and Andrews do an amazing job at voicing their respective characters. Since Mildred and Richard are both have a southern accent, Ojo and Andrews made sure to include those accents when narrating for them. Both Ojo and Andrews used calm and quiet voices when reading parts of the book that were happy and loving, but when parts of the story became enraging or upsetting, they also did a great job at showing that through their intonation. I feel that using slow and calm voices helped portray Richard and Mildred as essentially good people who were just trying to live in a time that made it illegal for them to do so together. When both Ojo and Andrews voiced Sheriff Brooks, they used more gruff and angry voices which helped to paint him as the bad guy in this story. Throughout the story both Ojo and Andrews would read excerpts from various historical court rulings. These readings were very neutral and lacked emotion, but were still very clear.

While there were no background sounds, there was soft guitar music that played in the background for the intro and outro. The introduction of the audiobook provided narrator and producer information. The outro provided the same producer information as well as the author information.

I was immediately engaged in the audiobook when I first turned it on. I struggle with reading novels in verse because while they are short and quick, it's hard for me to focus on the actual content of the story. I really enjoyed hearing the accents of the narrators and how calming and welcoming their voices sounded. Although the length of the audiobook is just over 2 hours long, it truly felt longer as I could feel myself getting lost in the story. I have previously heard of the Loving vs. Virginia case, but I never looked into the details of it. This audiobook provided so much of the background information in such a beautiful way. I felt like Mildred and Richard were truly the ones who were sharing their story.

After listening to the audiobook I did glance through an e-book version and noticed some differences that really make the printed novel stand out. Throughout the novel you can find small illustrations and graphic organizers that cover major milestones and court cases related to the Loving vs. Virginia case.

This story is truly something special, but I don't foresee a lot of young adults reaching for this story on their own unless they are interested in civil rights history.  This is also something I would suggest to students who are in their U.S. History class studying their civil rights unit, it would help to provide another point of view.

Rewards:

• Audie Award: History/Biography Winner, 2018
• Booklist, starred November 15, 2016: " Fine, dramatic storytelling in a memorable verse format."
• Kirkus Reviews starred, November 1, 2016: "A song of love vs. a cacophony of hate—all in a beautiful model of bookmaking."

Connections: 

• High school students could research various laws that can or could have previously affected their lives based on race, culture, gender, family, etc and write about how the laws would affect their identity at those times.
• Students can create a timeline centered around the events in the book as well as other important civil rights cases and events.
• Students can watch the film Loving (2016) and compare parts of the film with the book.