Martin Luther King Day

Part of the On My Own Holiday series, this easy-to-read book chronicles the life of Martin Luther King and the events leading up to the creation of a national holiday on his birthday last year. Lowery shows the incidents that influenced King's path: an early encounter with prejudice when the parents of a white friend won't allow the boys to play together; his reading the works of Mohandas Gandhi; Rosa Parks's refusal to go to the back of the bus in that now famous confrontation. Mitchell's pictures are straightforward and fairly realistic; together with the text they offer young readers an accessible work of nonfiction that fills a gap in information about American heroes. And it shows, in simple text, that ordinary people can bring about extraordinary results. (5-9)