Fighting with Love: The Legacy of John Lewis

by Lesa Cline-Ransome (Author) James E Ransome (Illustrator)

Fighting with Love: The Legacy of John Lewis
Reading Level: 4th − 5th Grade
Four starred reviews!

The “informative, resounding,” (Booklist, starred review), and “inspiring” (The Horn Book, starred review) story of a groundbreaking civil rights leader John Lewis comes to life in this compelling and beautifully told nonfiction picture book by the award-winning team Lesa Cline-Ransome and James E. Ransome.


John Lewis left a cotton farm in Alabama to join the fight for civil rights when he was only a teenager. He soon became a leader of a movement that changed the nation. Walking at the side of his mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Lewis was led by his belief in peaceful action and voting rights. Today and always his work and legacy live on.
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Kirkus Reviews

Starred Review
An excellent depiction of a life lived with purpose.

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review

Employing quotations from their book's subject, married collaborators the Cline-Ransomes chart the life of civil rights activist and politician John Lewis (1940-2020) from his Alabama childhood, in which, before he "was old enough to read the word 'love' in his Bible, he could feel it all around him." Beginning with the family's "sun-beaten, sweat-soaked, hunchbacked farming" labors, the creators offer a thoroughly contextualized account of the racial segregation Lewis experienced, his work in nonviolent resistance at the Nashville chapter of the NAACP, his involvement with the Freedom Riders, and his famously standing "for everyone who needed someone to stand up for what was right" on Selma, Ala.'s Edmund Pettus Bridge. Via pencil sketched on patterned paper, collage-style visuals contribute dimension to this well-researched love letter to a significant figure who believed that "nonviolence is love in action." Back matter includes an author's note and list of quote sources. Ages 4-8. (Jan.)

Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

Review quotes

*"The creators offer a thoroughly contextualized account of the racial segregation Lewis experienced, his work in nonviolent resistance at the Nashville chapter of the NAACP, his involvement with the Freedom Riders, and his famously standing "for everyone who needed someone to stand up for what was right."— "Publishers Weekly, (starred review)"
Lesa Cline-Ransome
Lesa Cline-Ransome is the author of numerous nonfiction and historical fiction titles for picture book, chapter book, middle grade, and young adult readers including Game Changers: The Story of Venus and Serena Williams and The Power of Her Pen: The Story of Groundbreaking Journalist Ethel L. Payne. Her verse biography of Harriet Tubman, Before She Was Harriet was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and received a Jane Addams Children's Book Honor, Christopher Award, and Coretta Scott King Honor for Illustration. Her debut middle grade novel, Finding Langston, won the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction and received the Coretta Scott King Award Author Honor. She lives in the Hudson Valley region of New York with her husband and frequent collaborator, James Ransome, and their family. Visit her at LesaClineRansome.com.

Kaylani Juanita is an illustrator based in Fairfield, California, who illustrates inclusive picture books, editorial art, and afros. Her book Magnificent Bomespun Brown, written by Samara Cole Doyon, received the 2021 Coretta Scott King Honor Award for illustration. Her work has been recognized by Society of Illustrators, HuffPost, and BBC. California grown and raised, she studied at CalArts and California College of the Arts for a BFA in illustration. Her mission as an artist is to support the stories of the underrepresented and create new ways for people to imagine themselves. You can find her lurking in public secretly drawing strangers or writing nonsensical stories about who knows what.
Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9781534496620
Lexile Measure
-
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books
Publication date
January 20, 2024
Series
-
BISAC categories
BIO000000 - Biography & Autobiography | General
Library of Congress categories
History
African Americans
Civil rights workers
United States
20th century
Civil rights
Race relations
African American civil rights workers
Lewis, John

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