Martin Luther King, Jr: I've Been to the Mountaintop

I've been reading a bit about Martin Luther King Jr's prophetic last speech, given April 3, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. It's so important to have heroes like Dr. King. After all the obstacles he came up against, all the resistance, all the threats, he stood strong. On what would be his last night, when he was feeling too ill to speak, he still came up to that microphone to do what he did best. He strengthened others through his words. He gave them power. He was fearless so they could be fearless.

You can read the entire Mountaintop speech at American RadioWorks.

In honor of the day, here are a couple reviews of two excellent children's books about civil rights:

• Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice 
• Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don't You Get Weary

The final words from Dr. King's Mountaintop speech:

Boston Globe Horn Book Awards & Colloquium

This weekend, I was lucky enough to attend the Boston Globe Horn Book Awards Ceremony and the following day-long colloquium at Simmons College. Here were the highlights for me:

Elizabeth Partridge gave a fascinating talk about her book Marching For Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don't You Grow Weary. She also gave a very cool presentation about Google Lit Trips. If you have Google Earth installed on your computer (it's easy to do), you can download the Marching for Freedom file and take an interactive journey following the exact path the marchers took from Selma to Birmingham. Along the way, Ms. Partridge has embedded a treasure trove of information, music, audio clips from speeches, and photographs to help you delve deeper into the story. There are Google Lit Trips for everything from The Grapes of Wrath to The Kite Runner and Make Way for Ducklings. How cool is that?

Rebecca Stead and her editor, Wendy Lamb, gave a great panel presentation about the collaborative nature of the author-editor relationship. They told a story about their struggles in finding the perfect title for When You Reach Me (the title they originally wanted, "You Are Here," was being used by another book coming out at the same time). And Rebecca Stead did an excellent every-day time travel experiment in her acceptance speech as she read her speech from two different points of view: the Rebecca Stead writing the speech in September, and the point of view of the Rebecca Stead reading the speech in October.

Peter Sis was just as charming, self-deprecating, and intelligent as I imagined he would be. Both his acceptance speech and his contributions to the picture book panel discussion were insightful and inspirational. All of the speeches of the evening will be up online eventually, but if you'd like to get a taste, here is the Boston-Globe Horn Book Award speech Peter Sis gave a couple years ago when he won for his non-fiction book The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain (Caldecott Honor Book). If you prefer to read along, here is the text. And if you like video, it's a little slow, but you *can* watch it. Peter Sis is about 12 minutes in.

Grab Bag Friday: Horn Book Awards

Tonight is the awards ceremony for the 2010 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards for children's literature. The illustrious award  and honor winners will receive their prizes and give their acceptances speeches...and guess what? Because I'll be an attendee at the Horn Book Colloquium at Simmons College this weekend, I get to go!

For me, getting to listen to Rebecca Stead and Peter Sis and Elizabeth Partridge talk, well, that's better than the Oscars. I'll fill you in on all the details next week. In the meantime, here are links to past blog posts I've written about some of the books that will be honored tonight:

Rebecca Stead, When You Reach Me (2010 Horn Book Fiction winner)

Elizabeth Partridge, Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don't You Grow Weary (2010 Horn Book Non-Fiction Winner)

Pam Munoz Ryan, illustrated by Peter Sis, The Dreamer (2010 Honor Book); more on my Peter Sis infatuation here

Elizabeth Partridge: Marching for Freedom

There was no question that I had to pick up Elizabeth Partridge's new book Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don't You Grow Weary. "Walk Together Children" is one of my favorite spirituals (you can even hear me perform it as part of my Songs of the Civil War Era lecture) and Elizabeth Partridge is the author of that stunning Woody Guthrie biography I was so taken with back in 2008. Resistance was futile.

Marching for Freedom covers the time period surrounding the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march that led to groundbreaking voter's rights legislation for African Americans. Unlike most books about the Civil Rights Movement, Elizabeth Partridge focuses on the young people who were a pivotal, energetic force for change in Alabama. Partridge argues that without the kids as young as six years old who stood up for justice and equality, many adults may not have had the courage to get involved. She writes that adults were often "shaken into bravery" by the determination of the young people around them.

Lynda Blackmon Lowery, the youngest person to make the entire 54 mile march on Mongomery said, "I was not brave, I was not courageous. I was determined. That's how I got to Montgomery."

One of the things I loved most about this book was the emphasis on the role of music during the Civil Rights Movement. Time after time, while these children found themselves in horrific, untenable circumstances...beaten, intimidated, thrown in jail, sometimes kids as young as 14 years old placed in solitary confinement...they sang. Patridge writes:

"The music made them bigger than their defeat, bigger than their fear. It wove them together, filled them once more with courage and strength."

I believe in the power of music to change the world. I believe in the power of young people to change the world. Marching for Freedom strengthened those beliefs.

(Note: There are some very difficult scenes in this book, so I wouldn't recommend it to the under-10 crowd without a willing, caring adult along for the ride.)

Elizabeth Partridge: This Land Was Made for You and Me

I just finished Elizabeth Partridge's biography of Woody Guthrie: This Land Was Made for You and Me. The book is geared for kids ages 12 and up, but there is enough detail and depth there to hold the attention of any adult interested in Woody Guthrie's music. Pete Seeger calls it "The best book about Woody ever written!"

In my "Stories behind the Songs" post about This Land Is Your Land, I wrote that Woody wrote over 1400 songs in his lifetime. Elizabeth Partridge says the number is over 3000, which is incredible especially when you consider that he only lived to be 55 years old.

The story of Woody Guthrie's life is fascinating, filled with moments of optimism, despair, redemption, and unthinkable tragedy. Elizabeth Partridge places Woody's story firmly within the events, places, and people who were so important to him and shaped who he was. The Dustbowl, Great Depression, migrant farms, New York City folk scene, and the Cold War all play a major role in the development of his songs.

And all the folk music greats show up: Ledbelly, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Pete Seeger, Odetta, Bob Dylan...the list goes on and on. The tragedies in his story are so heavy, and would almost be too much to bear if it wasn't for the stories of the people he loved and who cared about him and took him in and forgave him his weaknesses and idiosyncracies time and time again. Through good times and bad, it is clear that those relationships were influences on his music. Woody famously said:

"I hate a song that makes you think that you're not any good. I hate a song that makes you think you are just born to lose. I am out to fight those kinds of songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood."

The one question that is still burning in my mind after closing the book is, whatever happened to Mary? His first wife who dropped out of high school to be with him and endured all his wayward, rambling ways while she tried to take care of three children with little to no sporadic income. Halfway through the book, I started to hope that after their divorce, she went on to have the happy, stable life she probably dreamed of. But from the notes in the back of the book, it looks like two of her children contracted Huntington's Disease (the disease that tragically killed both Woody and his mother) and the third died in a car accident. There should be a song for Mary. Maybe there is, but there should be more.

There is much more information on Elizabeth Partridge's website, including an interview with Arlo & Nora Guthrie (two of Woody's children from his second marriage with the incredibly talented, patient, and giving dancer Marjorie Mazia).