    | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 08/01/2021 *Starred Review* While it’s not difficult to find individual biographies of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr, this book offers a rarer look at their connected paths. Krishnaswami’s comprehensive yet accessible text, complemented by intriguing, lesser-known facts, traces the life of each man, from his formative years to his rise as an influential leader to the untimely assassinations that cut both lives short. The accounts are nuanced, describing both Gandhi and King’s failures and setbacks as well as their strengths and accomplishments, all with the hope for freedom, equality, and peace. In Gandhi’s life story, the author notes the development of his spinning and weaving program to promote self-sufficiency in India. This act becomes symbolic throughout the book as Krishnaswami shows how Gandhi’s nonviolent methods influenced and became woven into King’s own tenets of nonviolence and the American civil rights movement. Following the individual biographies is a section that reinforces the goals of these kindred spirits and considers how their “threads of peace movements” can continue to be spun amidst today’s challenges, such as white supremacy, voting restrictions, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Adding more context to the history and concepts are a plethora of short sidebars and period photographs, time lines of each leader, and a glossary. A reflective presentation that will inspire young peacemakers. - Copyright 2021 Booklist. School Library Journal - 10/01/2021 Gr 7–10—While Martin Luther King, Jr.'s adoption of the strategy of nonviolence for the civil rights movement had its roots in India, few are aware of the exchange of philosophies between Mohandas Gandhi and Black activist leadership beginning in the 1920s. The volume begins with key moments of discrimination experienced by King on a bus at the age of 15 and Gandhi on a train in South Africa, and progresses into nine chapters covering Gandhi's life and work and 14 on King, with a few concluding chapters reinforcing themes and discussing their modern impact. Captioned photographs, pull quotes, vocabulary definitions, and sidebars pepper the text, offering students insights in an attractive format. While the work occasionally struggles to condense complex Indian politics into a few sentences, the largely narrative text benefits from key quotes that are meticulously sourced in the page-by-page notes in the back matter. Krishnaswami also points out the contradictory philosophies or opinions of the two leaders' contemporaries. An author's note, parallel time lines, and a comprehensive glossary, as well an extensive bibliography and index also provide researchers with wonderful starting points. VERDICT An in-depth and well-researched volume that complements existing YA biographies on these two individuals by forging a little-known connection between American Black activism and the Indian nonviolent movement.—Courtney Lewis, St. Catherine's Sch., Richmond, VA - Copyright 2021 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Loading...
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