Leon’s story by Leon Walter Tillage is a book geared toward middle school students and is an autobiography that I would recommend. Students of this age would easily be able to relate to Leon’s story and would feel empathy for his character. Leon’s story is filled with descriptions that would allow middle school students to visualize his experience and the author’s wording, allows the reader to put him/herself into Leon’s place.





Leon’ store details Leon Tillage’s childhood as the son of an African American sharecropper which takes place in North Carolina during the 1940’s. Leon begins his story with an introduction about his large family with 8 brothers and sisters and the challenges and difficulties he faces as and African American growing up in the Jim Crow era. One of the greatest problems was racism and discrimination. Another difficulty was having to find a job after his father’s death. Also, his stories of how he was badly treated by many white people in the town really make the reader outraged and horrified at how he was treated unfairly.




The book ends with Leon’s description of the 1950’s and the beginning of the marches that were protected under the law. Leon’s discrimination of the marches and his job as a janitor gives the reader some hope that society would begin to change and that all people, including African American children of middle school age, would some day have equal rights and protection, just as there white peers had.