Free DEFIANT Copies for Teachers, Professors and Librarians
The man who helped build America’s public schools belongs in one.
NPR Books We Love 2025. NAACP Image Award nominee for Outstanding Literary Work, Graphic Novel. Amazon Best Seller.
Robert Smalls was born into bondage in Beaufort, South Carolina in 1839. At 23 he took the wheel of a Civil War steamship in Charleston Harbor and carried his family and the families of several other people to freedom.
What he did next is the part most textbooks skip. He bought the house he had been held in. He started a newspaper. He founded a railroad. He helped write South Carolina’s Reconstruction constitution. And he championed the first free and compulsory public school system in the country.
Every teacher reading this works inside something Robert Smalls fought to create. We would like your students to know his name.
We are gifting copies of DEFIANT to teachers, professors and librarians so his story can reach classrooms and libraries across the country.
Who Qualifies:
Active K-12 and university teachers, librarians, or educational leaders. Any and all teachers are welcome while supplies last. If you are part of the Legion M or Stranger Comics community and know a teacher, please share this with them too.
What’s Included:
A gifted trade paperback copy of the DEFIANT graphic novel for your classroom or library.
A free printable Teacher’s Guide.
Information on ordering additional copies through Ingram, our school distributor, or direct from us.
Ordering more than 10 copies? Email chris@legionm.com for direct pricing.
Planning a Black History Month unit?
February is the month this book was made for, and it is also the month every school library in the country is competing for the same titles. Request your copy this fall. Read it, decide where it fits, and get your purchase order moving while there is still time for it to clear. Class sets ordered in February usually arrive in March.
DEFIANT works in Civil War and Reconstruction units, South Carolina and Southern history, Black History Month programming, and graphic novel literacy. It is written for readers 12 and up, and it is 128 pages in full color, which means it finishes in one sitting and reaches the students who do not finish assigned reading.
We Have Two Small Asks:
Once you have your copy, please leave an honest review on Amazon, especially if you love it. Every review helps spread the word.
Show off the book to your school and encourage your library and/or colleagues to order more copies so more students can discover the inspiring true story of Robert Smalls.
