Coretta’s Journey: The Life and Times of Coretta Scott King

Blending poetry and prose to chart the path of Coretta Scott King (1927–2006), Duncan and Christie portray a person who was formidable from her earliest years. A timeline that employs various poetic forms is interspersed with richly rendered scenes in third-person narration detailing Coretta’s childhood and adulthood. In segregated Heiberger, Ala., her birthplace, Coretta followed her mother’s advice to “get an education and try to be somebody,” becoming valedictorian of her high school, earning a college scholarship to Antioch, and studying at the New England Conservatory, where she met Martin Luther King Jr. They married and “followed a cosmic calling” to Montgomery, Ala. There, she supported his ministry and, after his assassination, lectured denouncing “racism, homophobia, poverty, and war.” Christie’s mixed-media watercolors center stylized portraiture based on key moments in the figure’s life. Ages 7–10. (Sept.)