Last week I browsed the Recent Arrivals shelves to see what has been newly published. I gravitated toward the graphic novels, a new favorite genre of mine. I spotted the book, Free Speech Handbook: A Practical Framework For Understanding Our Free Speech Protections, by Ian Rosenberg, with art by Mike Cavallaro. I picked it up, read the first couple pages and was hooked. I was up for learning the history of the first amendment, plus, it's a timely subject.
Rosenberg, an attorney and documentary filmmaker, examines ten critical Supreme Court cases while drawing parallels with recent and current events. Explanations are intelligible and supported with quotations from lawmakers, defendants, activists, journalists, and legal documents. As expected when discussing the First Amendment, there is a myriad of topics included such as women's marches, the civil rights movement, school walkouts, seven dirty words, and social media.
Rosenberg is the narrator and appears throughout the book as himself in comic form thanks to the illustrator, Mike Cavallaro. Cavallaro is a comic-book writer and artist whose talent engages the reader and enhances the storytelling of this complicated subject.
This book is a colorful civics lesson not to be missed. And it's beneficial for all readers young and old. I'm going to buy a couple copies for my sons.
Free Speech Handbook is available in print at Wilmette Public Library.