Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

It's been a long time since I had a middle-grade review, but I finally picked up a couple of audio books at the library and jumped back in.   Title: Author: Linda Williams Jackson, narrated by Reginald James Publication Info: Source: Publisher's Blurb: Award-winning author Linda Williams Jackson pulls from her own childhood in the Mississippi Delta to tell the story of Ellis Earl, who dreams of a real house, food enough for the whole family—and to be someone. It’s 1967, and eleven-year-old Ellis Earl Brown has big dreams. He’s going to grow up to be a teacher or a lawyer—or maybe both—and live in a big brick house in town. There’ll always be enough food in the icebox, and his mama won’t have to run herself ragged looking for work as a maid in order to support Ellis Earl and his eight siblings and niece, Vera. So Ellis Earl applies himself at school, soaking up the lessons that Mr. Foster teaches his class—particularly those about famous colored people like Mr. Thur...

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and in honor of the day I decided to look over and review some children's books on his life. I won't claim that these are the best, or even very carefully selected. I did what most kids or parents would do: went to the children's biographies section of the library and picked out the most promising-looking books of what was there (I'm sure there are others that were checked out). I got three rather different books. Here are my thoughts, in brief, on each.   Title: Free At Last: The Story of Martin Luther King, Jr. Author: Angela Bull Publisher: DK Publishing, 2009. 47 pages. This is a fairly conventional biography, at about a 3rd grade (8-year-old) reading level. It has sidebars with information about things mentioned in the main text, from slavery to the invention of television, and ample illustrations to engage less-adept readers. The biography is well-written, and includes the more challenging parts, like Martin's inability ...