Voices from the March on Washington

The powerful poems in this poignant collection weave together multiple voices to tell the story of the March on Washington, DC, in 1963.

From the woman singing through a terrifying bus ride to DC, to the teenager who came partly because his father told him, "Don't you dare go to that march," to the young child riding above the crowd on her father's shoulders, each voice brings a unique perspective to this tale. As the characters tell their personal stories of this historic day, their chorus plunges readers into the experience of being at the march—walking shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers, hearing Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous speech, heading home inspired.

J. Patrick Lewis is the 2011 winner of the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children and is BMP's third Children's Poet Laureate. He has written more than sixty books for children and adults, including Face Bug (which is on the Texas Library Association's Bluebonnet Award master list); If You Were a Chocolate Mustache; Spot the Plot: A Riddle Book of Book Riddles; and Please Bury Me in the Library. He lives in Westerville, Ohio. jpatricklewis.com.

George Ella Lyon is the author of 45 books, ranging from poetry for children such as All the Water in the World (an ALA Notable book) to picture books such as The Pirate of Kindergarten to young adult novels such as her recent Holding On to Zoe to fiction and poetry for adults. In fall 2014, she has one picture book scheduled: What the Forest Knows (illustrated by August Hall, Atheneum). She lives in Lexington, Kentucky. georgeellalyon.com.