Aside from the smudgy pastel illustrations provided by Anne Sibley O’Brien, this mother-and-son effort earns high marks both for adding less-celebrated names to the pantheon of peacemongers and for noting that the nonviolent approach to civil protest doesn’t always work—which makes the courage of those who engage in it all the more exemplary. Each of the 16 chronologically arranged chapters highlights a particular event, from the Gandhi-led mass burning of Indian registration documents in 1908 Johannesburg to the worldwide anti-Iraq war protest on February 5, 2003, then closes with a set of rubrics that add detail or historical background. Along with the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr., Muhammad Ali and César Chávez, young readers will meet—and come away admiring—Vietnam’s Thich Nhat Hanh, Australian Charles Perkins and the Students For Aboriginal Action, Belfast’s Peace People, the Mothers of the Disappeared in Buenos Aires and others who understood that “nonviolence is the weapon of the strong.” Might that admiration grow into emulation in some? (annotated bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 11-13)
