The Activist begins with Theodore winning a debate about status of migrants in US, specific issue being if their children ought to be allowed the same public schools and other education facilities that those of citizens do. Theodore Boone wins that debate with some very good pointers about reality of US as a nation.
It is a much needed reminder to those that live with blinkered vision about history and reality of the nation that US does not belong to the WASP, English speaking or the descendants of European origin who migrated to the continent at a point of time in history, but rather to all migrants - or only those that were there prior to that, migration referred to mistakenly as Indian or red Indian (a very convenient mistake, that, based on a lie and propagating it conveniently) and more correctly as Native Americans.
At that, the very name America was given to the continent and used for the nation US then and now by the migrants, wiping out the name or names that the continent and nation had in the culture of the indigenous. And, too, the name is that of a sailor from Latin Europe, which ironically is forgotten by those citizens of US who go "this is 'Merica and our language is English". English was voted not to long ago as the language, but it barely scraped past German as the common language, and most migrants spoke more than one language well past the first generation of migrants, even into the twentieth century.
The story here goes on to another much needed debate about crucial issue for the whole world rather than the microcosm that the small town the story takes place in, namely, what is falsely called development or economic development and is in reality a race to fill a few pockets of some rich businessmen - while everything else suffers, forests and water and wildlife and the very children that humanity invests in as future of the earth. Theodore Boone is an activist almost but not quite against his wish, circumstances forcing him and other children to take a position and carry out the agenda for people's rights to clean water and air and their rights to land and more.
They - the children, and the adults who help them - carry out this and win it with debate and other intelligent activities using technologies available today to children and adults alike, fortunately with less violence than the reader fears post the first encounter with thugs who invade someone's land. They do not even use language that might be considered inappropriate legally, not knowingly or deliberately anyway. And they win their debate and their rights with the final debate about the proposed bypass with a speech by Theodore Boone.
A must read for most people, and especially for those mistaken about what it means to be citizens of US. Or those that have forgotten.
