Coretta: The Autobiography of Mrs. Coretta Scott King

by Coretta Scott King, Ekua Holmes (Illustrator)

Overview

Celebrate the life of the extraordinary civil and human rights activist Coretta Scott King with this picture book adaptation of her critically acclaimed adult memoir.

This is the autobiography of Coretta Scott King––wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.; founder of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change (the King Center); architect of the MLK, Jr. legacy; and global leader in movements for civil and human rights as well as peace. Learn about how a girl born in the segregated deep south became a global leader at the forefront of the peace movement and an unforgettable champion of social change.

Resilience, bravery, and joy lie at the center of this timeless story about fighting for justice against all odds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250363558
Publisher:	Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Publication date:	01/02/2024
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	40
File size:	61 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Coretta Scott King was one of the leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement and a lifelong champion of social change. She supported pro-democracy movements across the globe and traveled the world advocating for racial and economic justice, religious freedom, access to education, and many more pressing social concerns.


Ekua Holmes is an award winning mixed-media artist from Roxbury, Massachusetts. Ekua is well known as a community activist in New England and runs a public art program at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Coretta Scott King was an American civil rights activist, international human rights champion and author, the wife of Martin Luther King Jr., and the mother of four. Born in 1927 in Heiberger, Alabama, she died in 2006 in Rosarito Beach, Mexico.
Ekua Holmes is a native of Roxbury, MA and a graduate of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She is the recipient of the 2013 NAACP Image Award, a Brother Thomas Fellowship, and a 5-year appointment to the Boston Art Commission. Her picture book illustrations include the Caldecott Honor book Voice of Freedom and the Coretta Scott King Award winners Out of Wonder and The Stuff of Stars. Holmes serves as Assistant Director of MassArt’s Center for Art and Community Partnerships, and manages sparc! the ArtMobile, the institution’s vehicle for community outreach.

Editorial Reviews

"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

From the Publisher

★ 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

School Library Journal

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

MARCH 2024 - AudioFile

★ 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)

Kirkus Reviews