Review by Booklist Review
PreS-Gr. 3. Dr. Martin Luther King is perhaps the most frequently requested biography subject, so there's always room for another book about the heroic leader, especially when it's a picture-book biography as good as this one. The focus here is on his public image, and words and art combine the essentials of his life story with an overview of the civil rights movement. Jenkins' dramatic, double-page collage illustrations set close-up portraits of the leader against crowd scenes of political marches and violent conflict. Then, after the glory of the March on Washington, there's a double-page spread showing the horror of the Birmingham deaths. The book ends with King's assassination, but words and pictures show his strength and his enduring message against racism and for peace. This is for a younger audience than Myers and Jenkins' Malcolm X: A Fire Burning Brightly (2000). There's also much less here about the subject's personal struggle, but when read together, the two titles will stimulate debate about issues of protest and nonviolence. --Hazel Rochman Copyright 2003 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 1-4-This eloquent picture book presents a brief overview of King's life and accomplishments. The text focuses on events beginning with the 1955 arrest of Rosa Parks and King's leadership during the yearlong boycott that eventually resulted in the integration of buses in Montgomery, AL. The book ends with his support of the striking sanitation workers in Memphis in 1968 and his assassination a few days later. In a clear and cogent manner, Myers frames King's political efforts and his belief in nonviolent demonstration for change with information about the personal consequences to the man and his family. The author also paraphrases some of his subject's most powerful speeches without quoting them directly. Jenkins's stunning collage artwork dramatically reflects the events described in the narrative. Information about how protestors were frequently assaulted is paired with an abstract street scene, the frighteningly toothy profile of a chalk-white guard dog front and center. In a spread depicting King's famous speech about seeing the promised land, he is shown with his arms gracefully yet compellingly uplifted; the power and beauty of his words are reflected in the brightly colored background, while fiery red tones foreshadow his murder. This book makes an excellent starting point to introduce young readers to King and should be coupled with Doreen Rappaport's Martin's Big Words (Hyperion, 2001), which so effectively provides access to the words that made him famous.-Susan M. Moore, Louisville Free Public Library, KY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
This picture book biography of Dr. King is distinguished by its emphasis on the hostility King encountered for pursuing social justice through nonviolence and by the narrative's framing device: the book both begins and ends in 1968, the year of his assassination. Jenkins's mixed-media illustrations are commanding. Timeline. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Following up their portrait of Malcolm X (2000), Myers briefly traces Dr. King's career, and Jenkins adds kaleidoscopic collages that both depict major incidents and figures of the Civil Rights movement, and capture the time's turmoil. Dr. King certainly doesn't lack for biographers, but Myers is unusually even-handed, highlighting King's nonviolent philosophy while viewing the Movement's angrier, more violent outbursts with a certain degree of--not sympathy, exactly, but understanding. Though Jenkins's images are sometimes over the top, as when he outfits the four children killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing with angel wings, and Myers frequently slips paraphrased lines from Dr. King's speeches into his narrative--"He said that he had been to the mountaintop and seen the promised land. He knew he might not reach that land . . . "--the balance of fact and feeling makes this a strong follow-up to Doreen Rappaport's Martin's Big Words (2002). (Picture book/biography. 5-8) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
