HOWARD THURMAN’S GREAT HOPE

Though rigidly purposeful, this important profile introduces young readers to a Civil Rights Movement figure who should be better known. Pursuing a dream of becoming his family’s first “college man,” Thurman proved so apt a student that the principal of his school agreed to tutor him an extra year so that he would qualify for high school. With help and support from other adults, notably his mother and grandmother, plus a stranger at a train station who paid an unexpected expense, he went on to succeed brilliantly. Issa’s narrative ends with his graduation from divinity school, leaving his adult exploits to an afterword. In Dawson’s large paintings, figures, often solitary ones, stand in dignity with downcast or averted eyes as if posing for statues or formal portraits. The author ends with Thurman’s college graduation and never discusses his significance as a strong advocate of nonviolence—but readers may be tempted by the text’s very spareness to seek out more information about him and his legacy. (Picture book/biography. 7-9)