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By Jenna · 15 posts · 121 views
last updated Mar 05, 2019 11:00AM
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Richie’s Picks: CHASING KING’S KILLER: THE HUNT FOR MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR’S ASSASSIN by James L. Swanson, Scholastic Press, January 2018, 384p., ISBN: 978-0-545-72333-6
“Rockets, moon shots
Spend it on the have nots
Money, we make it
Fore we see it you take it
Oh, make you wanna holler
The way they do my life”
-- Marvin Gaye, “Inner City Blues” (1971)
“Donald Trump blamed a faulty earpiece Monday for his repeated refusals to disavow the support of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke during a weekend ...more
“Rockets, moon shots
Spend it on the have nots
Money, we make it
Fore we see it you take it
Oh, make you wanna holler
The way they do my life”
-- Marvin Gaye, “Inner City Blues” (1971)
“Donald Trump blamed a faulty earpiece Monday for his repeated refusals to disavow the support of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke during a weekend ...more

Disclaimer: ARC provided by Scholastic. Book is scheduled to go on sale January 2018.
Summary
Readers, teachers, and librarians who are already familiar with the young readers’ adaptations of Chasing Lincoln’s Killer and “The President Has Been Shot” will welcome this addition to the series.
This book is divided into four parts: the first part is a recap of the civil rights movement and King’s leadership; the second part gives background on King’s assassin, James Earl Ray; the third part explains t ...more
Summary
Readers, teachers, and librarians who are already familiar with the young readers’ adaptations of Chasing Lincoln’s Killer and “The President Has Been Shot” will welcome this addition to the series.
This book is divided into four parts: the first part is a recap of the civil rights movement and King’s leadership; the second part gives background on King’s assassin, James Earl Ray; the third part explains t ...more

Mar 29, 2018
Barbara
rated it
really liked it
Shelves:
friendship,
vehicles,
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community,
travel,
civil-rights,
groundbreakers,
emotions,
health,
making-a-difference
It's hard to believe that so many years have passed since James Earl Ray assassinated civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968. But the decades have flown swiftly, and the fact of the matter is that Ray's motivations for his actions are still unclear. In this thoroughly-researched and engaging book, James Swanson describes the final days of King's life and the collision course with his killer. Readers will be fascinated to learn about Ray's swift evacuation from Memphis and how
...more

Swanson does a good job of summing up King's work in a fairly short amount of space in the first part, and the play by play of the assassination was quite suspenseful. I do wish he'd spent a little more time talking about Ray at the end with details of how he fed conspiracy theories from prison. There was more of this in the source notes, but I doubt young readers will go looking there.
...more

Tells the story of MLK’s rise to fame and what he did for the civil rights movement. Juxtaposed with the actions of his killer that lead up to the murder.
Lots of good details and the writing is good. Good for teens who don’t know the ins and outs of the time period involved. For me, it didn’t feel like it add any new knowledge to what I already knew.
Lots of good details and the writing is good. Good for teens who don’t know the ins and outs of the time period involved. For me, it didn’t feel like it add any new knowledge to what I already knew.

This book does a good job of synthesizing a ton of information into a very concise, readable account of the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr.'s accomplishments, and James Earl Ray's background. The pictures are well-chosen and well-placed throughout. The back matter, which makes up about a third of the book, is really extensive and goes into more detail about sources and conspiracy theories.
...more

Solid look at the life of Martin Luther King Jr. This title looks at the trajectory of King's life and that of his assassin James Earl Ray. The title includes many pictures that help to tell the story and bring different events to life for the reader.
...more

Nov 29, 2017
Tiff
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