Laura Baskes Litwin's Fannie Lou Hamer: Fighting for the Right to Vote analyzes the political life of sharecropper turned civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. Along with her launch into the voting rights arena in the summer of 1962 up until a 1976 recognition of her accomplishments by the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, D.C., the book sharply documents the key events of the civil rights era that help reaffirm that Hamer was indeed a courageous woman in the face of hatred and dissention. More of her private life needed to be investigated for the account though as we learn through scant mention that she had a long-suffering husband and a daughter that died from malnutrition. That end of things would probably have entailed a larger book not aimed at the young adult readership the slimmer book targets. This is a good companion piece to the study of modern American history at the eighth grade and high school level. ( )