Children of Rondo is really great supplemental reading for anyone learning about the history of the Rondo Community in St. Paul, MN. The book won't give you a great education but it will help you paint a picture of what the community looked and felt like to those living in it. The seven people who were interviewed tell fairly interesting and detailed stories about what it was like growing up in the neighborhood. Unfortunately the interview pool is a little shallow. None of the people who were interviewed were adults before the construction began on the highway so they can't give great first hand perspective on the effects it had on the community for adults who were forced out of their homes. The interviewees are also mainly female and only one of them had a parent who wasn't black (which the neighborhood was predominantly black). Luckily there is some variety in their schooling, the section of Rondo in which they lived, their extracurricular activities and their home situations. Overall this not only gives a glimpse into what being a child in the Rondo neighborhood was like but also what it was like to grow up black in urban Minnesota during the civil rights movement.
