Common Sense Media Review
By Jan Carr
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Powerful poems examine the final months of MLK's life.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 9+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Read
What's the Story?
MARTIN RISING: REQUIEM FOR A KING begins with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birth, then jumps to his birthday in 1968, three months before he was assassinated. During those months, King traveled back and forth to Memphis to lend support to the sanitation workers' strike, which was spurred when two African-American workers were accidentally crushed to death in a truck compactor. In Memphis, King delivered his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech and, with other civil rights leaders, led a march that erupted into violence. He was planning another march when he was assassinated. The book includes poems about the assassination itself, the alleged assassin, James Earl Ray, and King's funeral. Many poems focus on historically significant events, and others touch on King's personal life, including a bout of the flu, a tension-releasing pillow fight with other civil rights leaders, and his love for his family.
Is It Any Good?
It's risky to use poetry to write about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., but risks pay off beautifully in this moving and informative book. The "docu-poems" in Andrea Davis Pinkney's Martin Rising: Requiem for a King set a mood while documenting events. Confining the time to the three months leading up to the assassination allows kids to zoom in on a slice of civil rights history. Kids can piece the history together from clues in the poems and learn more from the book's informative back matter. Illustrator Brian Pinkney used watercolor, gouache, and India ink to create art that feels as poetic as the text. The washy golden yellows and moody blues turn stormy when King is shot.
In another risky move, the text doesn't tie the ragged strands of the assassination in a neat bow. One poem, entitled "Unsolved History," asks the thought-provoking questions: "Who was Martin's true assassin?" "Did somebody put him up to it?" "Is the government the guilty party?" Though the overall subject matter of King's assassination is sad and bleak, art at the end pictures King in the center of a golden Easter Sunday sun, closing on a note of hope. "But in the swill of our tears, we find gladness, too .... His life well lived for peace and good. Martin's spirit -- still alive."
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the historical events in Martin Rising: Requiem for a King. Did you know about the sanitation workers' strike in Memphis, and Dr. King's assassination? Why do you think the author decided to limit the time span to those last months?
Why do you think the author chose to tell this history using poems rather than straight text? How are these poems different from others you've read? As you read them, were you able to understand the history the poems were based on?
Why do you think the poem "Unsolved History" asks questions about the assassination? Can you find information from other trusted sources about King's alleged killer, James Earl Ray? Why do you think the King family doesn't believe Ray was the assassin? If Ray wasn't responsible, who might be?
Book Details
- Author :
- Illustrator : Brian Pinkney
- Genre : Biography
- Topics : Activism , History
- Book type : Non-Fiction
- Publisher : Scholastic Press
- Publication date : January 2, 2018
- Publisher's recommended age(s) : 9 - 12
- Number of pages : 128
- Available on : Nook, Hardback, Apple Books, Kindle
- Last updated : September 30, 2025
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