Farris, Christine King. My brother Martin: a sister remembers growing up with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Illustrated by Chris K. Soentpiet. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2003. ISBN: 978-0689843884.
Author Website: None
Illustrator Website: http://www.soentpiet.com/
Awards: NAACP Image Award: Outstanding Literary Work 2004. CBC/NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Book.
Media: Watercolor Paint and Black and White Photographs
Use of Simile: (p. 30) “These stories were as nourishing as the food that was set before us.”
Annotation: Martin Luther King Jr.’s sister shares her childhood memories of her brother. The author recalls when her young brother first spoke about changing the world and offers a glimpse of daily life in the King household in Atlanta in the 1930’s.
Personal Reaction: Christine King Farris recalls hearing her younger brother, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., say, “Mother Dear, one day I’m going to turn this world upside down,” (p. 26) upon learning about the unequal rights of blacks and whites. King Farris, Martin (M.L.) and their younger brother Alfred Daniel (A.D.) spent their early childhood in Atlanta in the 1930’s playing with Tinker toys, trying to avoid piano lessons and playing baseball with the neighborhood kids. The baseball games included two white boys until one day those same two boys told M.L. and A.D. that they were no longer allowed to play with “negroes,” (p.23). According to King Farris, the words of these two boys were the beginning of her brother Martin’s desire to make a difference in the world. King Farris has two messages for readers. She wants readers to know that her famous late brother was a regular kid who pulled pranks and played games with his siblings when he was a kid. King Farris also wants readers to understand that one day her brother Martin did “turn the world upside down,” and that perhaps, someday, they will, too. King Farris includes a poem entitled You Can Be Like Martin by Mildred D. Johnson at the end of the book as further inspiration to readers to “realize the potential that lies within each of them,” (p. 39). Reading words about King written by a person who knew Martin Luther King Jr. so intimately made me think differently about King. I looked back at King before the marches and the “I have a dream,” speech and thought about the person who grew and developed to become that great man. This brief childhood biography of King would be a wonderful story to share with children of various ages and would be particularly useful for initiating a discussion about personal potential with older students. Martin Luther King Jr. did “turn the world upside down,” but he was also a kid just like today’s kids and someday, one or more of these kids is going to “turn the world upside down.” Soentpiet’s realistic watercolor paintings eloquently capture the moods of the Christine King Farris, Martin Luther King Jr. and Alfred Daniel King as children, along with their parents and grandparents. The illustration of Mother Dear and young Martin discussing why people treat blacks and whites differently is riveting (p. 26-27). Soentpiet focuses his painting on the expressions of Martin and his mother, showing the sadness of Mother Dear having to share ugly truths about the world with her son and the determination in Martin’s eyes to change the world. Interestingly, Soentpiet relies on live models to paint his illustrations. For this book, Christine King Farris enlisted the help of her relatives and friends to pose for Soentpiet.
