(2) 4-6 Illustrated by Rod Brown. This collection begins with a man in a cotton field and ends with three newly free African Americans in Canada. Shange's poems are filled with a sense of urgency; most of the paintings are dark, and Brown effectively uses dabs of white to convey a sense of danger (moonlight reflected off the shirt of a runaway, making him visible to trackers, for example).

Reviewer: Kathleen T. Horning | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2012

(4) 4-6 Illustrated by Rod Brown. Eighteen varied poems, including "Booker T. Washington School, 1941" and "Heah Y'all Come" ("now the children run freely / toward each other / knowin no fears of the other") provide impressions of the U.S. civil rights movement. The accompanying paintings range from uplifting (e.g., protest marchers, arms linked) to unflinching in their depiction of violence against African Americans.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Kadir Nelson. Shange's spare, poetic text sketches the life of Coretta Scott King. The story begins with her childhood, when she had to walk five miles each way to school, then moves to her leadership role as partner to Martin Luther King Jr. in life and within the civil rights movement. Nelson's gorgeous oil paintings capture the essence of the woman and her times.

Reviewer: Henrietta M. Smith

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Kadir Nelson. Shange's elegiac poem "Moon Indigo" serves as text for this picture book, which presents the poem from the point of view of a little girl whose family is visited by some of the great African-American men of the mid-twentieth century: Ellington, Du Bois, Robeson. Nelson's cool-toned illustrations are sleek and sophisticated but represent the poem--powerful and sad on its own--on only its most superficial level.

Reviewer: Roger Sutton

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Edel Rodriguez. The text, more impressionistic than informational, touches on young Cassius Clay's belief in a "colored Superman" and his questions about whether heaven is segregated, then zips through career highlights and personal challenges. The spare, lyrical prose and appealing mixed-media illustrations celebrate the perseverance, generosity, and humanity of this "hero for all time." An appended chronology fills in factual gaps. Bib.

Reviewer: Peter D. Sieruta | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2002