ALA Booklist (Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 CDT 2008)

Growing up in Florida in the early twentieth century, Thurman was an excellent student but had little hope of progressing beyond seventh grade. Fortunately, a principal, a town doctor, and a total stranger gave him a chance to continue his schooling, and Thurman later became a college man. This picture-book biography describes the bone-weary working conditions and unfair educational situation for African Americans in the segregated South as well as the uphill struggle of escaping poverty through education. Dawson's realistic oil paintings capture the fatigue, hope, and dignity of Thurman and his hard-working family. An appended note summarizes Thurman's subsequent education, lifetime accomplishments as a prominent minister, and his influence on Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders. Too few children know about Thurman, but his inspirational struggle to obtain an education makes this a worthy title for social-studies units and Black History Month.

Horn Book (Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2009)

Issa's text reflects on the life of civil rights activist Thurman, who, as a young man, studied arduously and continued his education at a time and place where it hardly seemed possible. He then became a great minister and the first African American to meet with Gandhi in India. Dawson's quietly thoughtful oil paintings reflect the story's somber yet hopeful mood.

Kirkus Reviews

<p>Though rigidly purposeful, this important profile introduces young readers to a Civil Rights Movement figure who should be better known. Pursuing a dream of becoming his family's first "college man," Thurman proved so apt a student that the principal of his school agreed to tutor him an extra year so that he would qualify for high school. With help and support from other adults, notably his mother and grandmother, plus a stranger at a train station who paid an unexpected expense, he went on to succeed brilliantly. Issa's narrative ends with his graduation from divinity school, leaving his adult exploits to an afterword. In Dawson's large paintings, figures, often solitary ones, stand in dignity with downcast or averted eyes as if posing for statues or formal portraits. The author ends with Thurman's college graduation and never discusses his significance as a strong advocate of nonviolencea"but readers may be tempted by the text's very spareness to seek out more information about him and his legacy. (Picture book/biography. 7-9)</p>

School Library Journal (Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2008)

Gr 2-5 This handsome book introduces one of the first leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Reverend Thurman inspired Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote more than 20 books, and was the first African American to travel to India to meet with Mahatma Gandhi. Born in 1900 in Daytona, FL, he lived with his grandmother and sisters while his widowed mother cleaned and cooked for others. In 1914, the one public school for Negroes in town stopped at the seventh grade, making high school virtually impossible. Nevertheless, Thurman was the best student in the school, and the principal offered to prepare the ambitious boy for the rigorous eighth-grade examination. He passed the exam with a perfect score, earning a full scholarship to the Negro high school in Jacksonville, almost 100 miles away. Thurman graduated first in his class; he attended Morehouse College and was one of only a handful of Negroes to attend Rochester Theological Seminary. The format features a page of text facing an illustration that sometimes extends onto the opposite page. Reds, blues, and yellows pop against brown wood desks or whitewashed walls in vivid, realistic oil paintings. The author drew from Thurman's memoir and papers to create this accessible, engaging biography. Barbara Auerbach, New York City Public Schools