From the Publisher
"The first-person retelling of events such as the March on Washington is compellingly personal. Holmes’s vibrant illustrations (in acrylic with elements of collage incorporating print and photos) saturate the pages with color. The illustrations also take great care in communicating the very human emotions that King and her family experienced...Reynolds and Holmes bring this civil rights icon to life, reminding readers of a dream yet to be fully realized." — Horn Book (starred review)
"...the illustrations, which deftly incorporate collaged photos and news clippings along with richly patterned drapes and other background details, give the author a formidable presence both in private moments and standing proudly before marching masses...Eloquent and stately." — Kirkus (starred review)
"Holmes' stunning illustrations steal the show. Her colorful mixed-media collages demand attention, whether conveying Coretta's dignity and grace while speaking in public or capturing the poignancy of Coretta comforting her infant daughter, Yoki, after a bomb exploded on the front porch of their home. . .This worthy addition to the Coretta Scott King canon will make an especially compelling read-aloud." —Booklist
School Library Journal
★ 12/15/2023
Gr 3–5—This abridged illustrated version of Coretta Scott King's autobiography is both powerful and beautiful. Multimedia collages dominate the pages: layered portraits, straightforward portrayals of the text, and mosaics incorporating newspaper print and photographs. Bright colors counteract the sepia and black-and-white tones of the newspaper pictures. The use of collage allows readers to feel the different waves of emotions, especially as the text turns to the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Coretta Scott King's life afterward. The motif of flowers ties the book together, showing grace in a time of tragedy. VERDICT A gorgeous book to introduce children to the triumphs and tragedies of one of the Civil Rights Movement's most avid champions.—Jessica Durham
MARCH 2024 - AudioFile
Music and sound effects are beautifully paired with January LaVoy's inviting narration of this adaptation of Coretta Scott King's autobiography for adults. Hymns and soft lyrical strains play in the background as LaVoy describes King's church-based, family-strong youth. Her narration becomes agitated when Coretta asks about the prejudice surrounding her. The music and narration are dreamy as Lavoy describes a young adult Coretta's vision of what life might be. Smoldering blues tunes play in the background as LaVoy depicts Coretta's developing love for Martin. The music and narration are by turns tempestuous, victorious, and humble as the autobiography turns to Coretta's significant life of activism. During the Afterword, LaVoy's voice is strong while delivering facts about Coretta's life, as well as a Civil Rights Movement timeline and the principles of nonviolence. S.W. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2023-10-07
A moving testimonial, distilled from 2017’s Coretta: My Life, My Love, My Legacy.
“I was the doer, a workaholic always looking for a project,” King writes of her childhood, and in this set of lightly edited extracts from her long-delayed last memoir, she traces her rise from someone “born in Nowhere, USA, into a race that was virtually disqualified from humanity and a gender condemned to silence” to a true mover in the struggle for civil rights and, later, human rights. Though she does describe her first meeting with Martin—and her later demand that there be no mention of “obeying” or submission in their wedding vows—in general she brushes in the era’s family and larger events with broad strokes, up to her husband’s death, her foundation of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, and, in 1983, the establishment of his birthday as a national holiday. It’s unclear why Holmes opts to leave the figures in the wedding picture and in some other scenes startlingly faceless, but overall the illustrations, which deftly incorporate collaged photos and news clippings along with richly patterned drapes and other background details, give the author a formidable presence both in private moments and standing proudly before marching masses. “The Dream,” she concludes meaningfully, “is a work that is very much in progress.”
Eloquent and stately. (Six Principles of Nonviolence, timeline) (Picture book memoir. 7-9)
