(4) K-3 Illustrated by Leonard Jenkins. FDR's assistant secretary of the interior, Oscar Chapman, was instrumental in organizing Marian Anderson's 1939 Lincoln Memorial concert. This picture book biography fills in Chapman's civil rights background (e.g., his childhood attempts to hang a picture of Abraham Lincoln in his racist Virginia school). Jenkins's expansive mural-like paintings are impressive in themselves but tend to overwhelm the slight--in comparison--text.

Reviewer: Roger Sutton

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Leonard Jenkins. In this fictionalized account of a true story, an African American Little League team in South Carolina can't enter the playoffs because sixty-one white teams refuse to play them. While the story is dramatic in and of itself, the text doesn't manage to convey much emotion; the impressionistic illustrations are more effective. An author's note provides background information on the 1955 event.

Reviewer: Henrietta M. Smith

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Leonard Jenkins. In a small village in Ethiopia, a girl sets out to become the best beekeeper even though she's told, "That's men's work, little girl." Her determination and creativity help her succeed by finding a novel way to protect her hive from ants. The dark textured acrylic, pastel, and spray-paint illustrations set the scene in contemporary Africa. An author's note is included. Glos.

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth

(2) 4-6 Adapted by Joyce Carol Thomas. Illustrated by Leonard Jenkins. Thomas sacrifices none of the oral qualities of the original collections' language in these adaptations that bring six of Hurston's tales to a younger audience. Jenkins's haunting illustrations vary from representational art (in a portrait of Hurston accompanying a biographical sketch) to surreal collages. Rich in both language and art, this collection is a fitting tribute to Hurston's work.

Reviewer: Betty Carter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2004

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Leonard Jenkins. Burleigh tries to convey the creative process by assuming Langston Hughes's voice to describe a ride on a train from Illinois across the Mississippi to Mexico, on which Hughes wrote his famous poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." The text is unconvincing and wordy, but Jenkins's art is more successful, using mixed media to capture both Hughes's experience of the train ride and the power of his poetry.

Reviewer: Susan Dove Lempke

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Leonard Jenkins. Hallie describes the day in 1839 when she discovers two runaway slave girls hiding out in her neighbors' home. Hallie's narration isn't always convincing, but her dilemma is: should she listen to her well-meaning, law-abiding father or to her conscience? Jenkins's brooding, collage-style, mixed-media art helps flesh out the characters. Reading list, websites.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Leonard Jenkins. 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.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Leonard Jenkins. In this ode to motorcycles and the joys of cycling, the rhyming text celebrates a wide variety of different bikes and bikers: "bikers young and bikers old / bikers who don't fit the mold." The energy of the text is echoed in colorful illustrations that convey the speed and excitement of riding a motorcycle.

Reviewer: Jim St. Claire

(2) 4-6 Illustrated by Leonard Jenkins. Focusing on the dramatic turning points in his subject's life and using direct quotes from the man himself, Myers's spare and eloquent narrative makes the complexities of Malcolm X's story accessible without compromising its integrity. The book has appeal for reluctant teen readers as well as younger readers. The sophisticated paintings blend realism with abstraction to heighten the underlying emotional drama of scenes.

Reviewer: Kathleen T. Horning | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2000

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Leonard Jenkins. Sand and silt gradually build up around a sunken boat, creating an island in a river; then, over time, the island slowly erodes. To successive generations of her family, a woman tells the story of the shipwreck she saw as a girl, marking different stages of the island's life as well as her own. Objects in the illustrations are sometimes unrecognizably abstract, but the text effectively conveys the passage of time.

Reviewer: Kitty Flynn

(2) 4-6 Illustrated by Leonard Jenkins. There's no reason eleven-year-old Jolene shouldn't like Leroy Redfield, except that he takes Momma dancing on Friday nights. Jolene, like the reader, senses the inevitable and deals with it the way any headstrong girl still hurting from the loss of her own father would. Despite its predictability, this down-to-earth story of an African-American family living in a 1940s Louisiana milltown unfolds at a steady pace.

Reviewer: Mary Burkey | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 1998