The Youngest Marcher: The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, a Young Civil Rights Activist

K-Gr 4--Levinson's We've Got a Job followed nine-year-old Audrey Faye Hendricks and three other youths who were among the thousands of children and teens who marched for freedom in Birmingham, AL, in 1963. Here, she pulls from that material, including personal interviews, to highlight Hendricks's story for younger audiences, telling it from her subject's perspective. The author introduces the Hendricks family's frequent dinner guests, Mike, Fred, and Jim--the ministers Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Shuttlesworth, and James Bevel, respectively. She also describes the indignities of African American life in Alabama at the time. When Mike's campaign to protest segregation and "fill the jails" doesn't work, young Audrey eagerly volunteers for Jim's new idea--getting children to march. Digital collage illustrations show a young, pigtailed Audrey and her family mostly smiling and happy leading up to the march--she even brings a new board game to pass the time. Pictures and words combine to depict the discomfort of Hendricks's actual experience: loneliness, unpalatable food, angry white interrogators, and even solitary confinement. Like young Audrey, readers will be relieved when her weeklong sentence is up and she goes home to "hot rolls, baptized in butter," and the promise of a brighter future. VERDICT Simplified and sweetened, but still a significant portrayal of Audrey Faye Hendricks and the Children's March. For collections in need of history materials for the younger set.--Kathleen Isaacs, Children's Literature Specialist, Pasadena, MD

Levinson returns to the subject of We've Got a Job as she recounts, for a younger audience, the story of Audrey Faye Hendricks and her role in the 1963 Children's March in Birmingham, Ala. Moving briskly through events, Levinson explains how the young Hendricks was eager to stand up to segregation, marching alongside thousands of fellow students, who were subsequently arrested. Newton's bright, digitally assembled collages adeptly highlight the danger of the situation--grim cells, barbed-wire fences, children blasted with fire hoses--while emphasizing the power of the marchers' collective efforts to push back against injustice. Ages 5-10. Author's agent: Erin Murphy, Erin Murphy Literary. Illustrator's agent: Lori Nowicki, Painted Words. (Jan.)