# No Crystal Stair

**Author:** Vaunda Micheaux Nelson
**Grade range:** Grades 4–9
**First published:** 2024
**Page count:** 236
**Genre:** Children's
**ISBN-13:** `9781467731775`
**ISBN-10:** `1467731773`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/no-crystal-stair-a-documentary-novel-of-the-life-and-work-of-lewis-michaux-harle
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

"You can't walk straight on a crooked line. You do you'll break your leg. How can you walk straight in a crooked system?" Lewis Michaux was born to do things his own way. When a white banker told him to sell fried chicken, not books, because "Negroes don't read," Lewis took five books and one hundred dollars and built a bookstore. It soon became the intellectual center of Harlem, a refuge for everyone from Muhammad Ali to Malcolm X. In No Crystal Stair, Coretta Scott King Award–winning author Vaunda Micheaux Nelson combines meticulous research with a storyteller's flair to document the life and times of her great-uncle Lewis Michaux, an extraordinary literacy pioneer of the Civil Rights era. "My life was no crystal stair, far from it. But I'm taking my leave with some pride. It tickles me 

## Where this book is assigned

### Boston Globe–Horn Book Award

- **recommended** · 4th grade — [source: Boston Globe–Horn Book Award winners, via Wikipedia — 2012 Winner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Globe%E2%80%93Horn_Book_Award)
- **recommended** · 5th grade — [source: Boston Globe–Horn Book Award winners, via Wikipedia — 2012 Winner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Globe%E2%80%93Horn_Book_Award)
- **recommended** · 6th grade — [source: Boston Globe–Horn Book Award winners, via Wikipedia — 2012 Winner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Globe%E2%80%93Horn_Book_Award)
- **recommended** · 7th grade — [source: Boston Globe–Horn Book Award winners, via Wikipedia — 2012 Winner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Globe%E2%80%93Horn_Book_Award)
- **recommended** · 8th grade — [source: Boston Globe–Horn Book Award winners, via Wikipedia — 2012 Winner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Globe%E2%80%93Horn_Book_Award)
- **recommended** · 9th grade — [source: Boston Globe–Horn Book Award winners, via Wikipedia — 2012 Winner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Globe%E2%80%93Horn_Book_Award)

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