W. W. Law, a Savannah mail carrier, worked all his life for civil rights--registering black voters, organizing boycotts, training protesters. Each handsome double-page spread covers one topic ("Picket Lines"), taking the reader chronologically through Law's life and placing his story in the context of the larger struggle. Full-page oil and collage illustrations foreground elongated forms that radiate strength and dignity.

The story of a boy who grew up to be one of Savannah's Civil Rights leaders is simply told and illustrated with striking oil-and-collage paintings. Jim Crow informed Westley Law's childhood, as he and his family endured the routine humiliation of segregation. From this beginning, he grew up to become a voters' rights activist with the NAACP, an activity that barred him from becoming a teacher; instead, he became a letter carrier, a perfect occupation, it turns out, for a grass-roots organizer. Haskins's understated text is divided into one-spread "chapters," a technique that helps to lead readers through the rather esoteric process of non-violence training and protest-organizing. These "chapters" are paired with Andrews's striking paintings, his elongated forms and elegant verticals underscoring the resoluteness of Law's protesters and the relative peacefulness of the change he was able to effect in Savannah, in dramatic contrast to much of the rest of the South. This pleasing treatment of one man's efforts to bring about seismic change is marred by a lack of documentation of quoted material, but is followed up with a biographical note. (Picture book/biography. 6-10)

The late Haskins (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">The Story of Stevie Wonder) sheds light on a little-known hero of the civil rights movement, Westley Wallace Law. The book begins in 1932: as a child, Law lived with his grandmother in Savannah, Ga., while his mother worked as a live-in housekeeper for a white family. Brief vignettes describe early events that troubled the boy: a saleswoman's condescending attitude toward his grandmother, the city's widespread segregation and the fact that "no matter how hard his mother worked, they were still poor." He promised himself that he would heed his grandmother's prayer that he become "a leader of our people." His early efforts began with helping black people prepare for a test required in order to register to vote. By day delivering mail (the college-educated Westley wanted to be a teacher, but no Savannah school would hire him because he was an NAACP member), Law devoted his free time to organizing anti-segregation campaigns—always emphasizing the need to protest without violence. In an extraordinary achievement largely due to Law's leadership, Savannah became the first Southern U.S. city "to declare all its citizens equal, three years before the federal Civil Rights Act." An afterword chronicles his later public service works. Though Andrews's stylized oil and collage illustrations may be better suited to mood pieces (such as his work in <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">The Hickory Chair; <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Sky Sash So Blue), than to the real-life events here, he nonetheless endows Law with a sense of stature and poise in the hero's portraits. Ages 5-8. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Nov.)