Leading with Light: Martin Luther King, Jr. by Jon M. Fishman

About 250,000 people gathered in front of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963. The huge crowd included different races, ages, and social classes. They were participating in the March for Jobs and Freedom.

King was noted for his ability to inspire with his words. Yet as his prepared speech went on, some felt it wasn't having much of an impact. Singer Mahalia Jackson called out to him. She told him to stop reading and speak from his heart.

That speech was, of course, the "I Have A Dream" speech that moved the crowd and the nation. Athough it was not a long speech, it had been a long time coming. Little Martin first experienced racial segregation when his friend, the son of the owner of the store across the street, told him that they couldn't be friends anymore because they were different colors and going to be starting to different schools. As the son of the pastor of a large church, Martin had been shielded from much of the racial discrimination in Atlanta. His well-educated mother taught him to read and play piano before he was school age, and yet when he needed new shoes, he learned that there were stores and plenty of other places where he could not go. Still, he was a brilliant student, beginning at Morehouse College at the age of fifteen, Crozier Theological Seminary, and graduate school at Boston University, where he was inspired by Thoreau and Gandhi's writings on passive dissent, earning advanced degrees with honors at each. Still, especially in the South, there were places he couldn't go and things he was not allowed to do.

One of those things black people were not allowed to do was sit in any seat on the bus, and when Rosa Parks attempted to integrate the public buses in Montgomery, Alabama, Martin King, now Reverend King, was drawn into the bus boycott. His house was bombed, his family threatened, but eventually the city relented and people were allowed to sit wherever they could find a seat. It was the first victory over public accommodations and soon King became a national leader in what came to be called the Civil Rights Movement. Over the next decade King participated in the Birmingham school desegregation campaign, beaten and arrested, resulting in his famous "Letter from the Birmingham Jail," the sit-ins for integration of public accommodations, the "I Have a Dream" speech in the Washington Mall, and his eventual assassination in Memphis by a white segregationist shooter.

Jon M. Fishman's recent Martin Luther King Jr.: Walking in the Light (Gateway Biographies) (Lerner Publications, 2019) covers this turbulent period in American history in a succinct but comprehensive account of Martin Luther King's short life and its effects on American history with fast-moving prose written for middle readers in need of materials meant to widen their understanding of their recent past. Illustrated with ample illustrations from the period, and with a supplemental appendix with a timeline, source notes and bibliography, further reading, websites, and detailed index. Perfect for January book reports and research report, this book in Lerner's dependable Gateway series, is a good choice for classroom and school and public libraries.

What a Woman! What a Life! Harriet Tubman by Doraine Bennett

Making American history real and vibrant for primary graders is not an easy task. First graders don't have many years in their personal rearview mirrors, and even grandparents' lives seem like ancient history. But citizenship begins in childhood with early childhood education when stories of heroic deeds can vividly engage young minds. One historic hero who is fairly recent in the historic record is Harriet Tubman, a woman whose dedication and courage outshines many another better-known hero.

Harriet was born in Maryland sometime before 1822 and sent off to work for a neighboring farmer at the age of five. She was beaten by her temporary master and carried a scar on her forehead from a blow from her owner, but fortunately managed returned to the farm where her own families were still slaves. Harriet grew up doing all kinds of work--field work, laundry, cleaning, and cooking, and when she became an adult, she heard stories if a place called Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, a place where slaves could be free to work for their own wages, go to church, and become educated, and Harriet decided that she was going to find a way to that place someday.

And when she did, she determined that she was going to help others escape. Fearlessly, she went back by night to bring her own parents to freedom, taking a horse and wagon from her master's barn and barely escaping ahead of the bullets of her pursuing master across the Pennsylvania line. Known as "the Moses of Her People, Harriet made 19 trips back into slave country and rescued up to 300 people, proudly telling Frederick Douglass that she "never lost a single passenger" on her personal Underground Railroad. Vigorously sought by Southern slavecatchers, Harriet even made her way to Canada until it was safe to return to Philadelphia.

When the Civil War broke out, Harriet volunteered to nurse the wounded in Union hospitals and soon became as a famed spy behind Confederate lines, sometimes going into Rebel army camps disguised as a laundress to gain secrets of troop movement. She was so daring that she actually gained information that enabled her to lead a company of Union soldiers up a river in South Carolina to destroy a Rebel arsenal and ferry. In her long life, Harriet never ceased her efforts for equality and even became a prominent leader in the Women's Suffrage Movement until her death in 1913.

What a life! What a WOMAN!

Doraine Bennett's short but fact- and illustration-filled book, Harriet Tubman (American Heroes) (State Standards Publishing, 2019) offers primary graders the basic facts of the life of this amazing historic hero. A strong mind in her barely five-feet tall body, Tubman is now recognized as a truly amazing African-American hero, an American heroine worthy of the fame that has come to her only recently. More books for primary readers include Carole Boston Weatherford's Caldecott-winning Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom (Caldecott Honor Book) and David Adler's easy reader, A Picture Book of Harriet Tubman (Picture Book Biography).

Sister Act! Sisters: Venus and Serena Williams by Jeanette Winter

Daddy and Mama want their two youngest girls to learn tennis.

They have dreams for their future.

Daddy and Mama even learn to play tennis so they can teach Venus and Serena to play.

Luckily the little sisters, only one year apart in age, like to play tennis. They eagerly get up early to practice before school. They don't have a posh country club, but they have the city of Compton, California's city park courts, and although they sometimes have to clear the court of trash first, they take to serving and volleying quickly.

Venus and Serena concentrate HARD.

And Serena and Venus hit HARD. They tease and taunt and teach and compete with each other.

Older boys come to jeer, but stay to cheer. These girls got game!

THWOCK!

THWANK!

And the crowds that see them play their first tournaments cheer their wins, and the trophies begin to pile up back in their house. Soon a tennis academy in Florida invites the girls to come there, and the family moves, and the plucky little sisters grow into powerful teenage stars and strong international stars with a flair for stylish tennis togs and beaded hairdos.

But through big wins, sad losses, and health problems, they keep hitting that ball and inspiring many younger players.

Jeanette Winter's new biography of the famed Williams sisters, Sisters: Venus and Serena Williams (Beach Lane Books, 2019) offers primary readers a short biography of the world's most famous tennis team that emphases the hard work they and their parents put in to make them star athletes. Winter's illustrations are big and bold and yet charming depictions of the two tennis mavens that ace the story visually for younger readers.

Says Booklist, "A great introduction to an incredible sister act."

Jeanette Winter is also the author of the noted The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq, (see review here).