Martin's Big Words

Based on the 2001 book written by Doreen Rappaport and illustrated by Bryan Collier, the iconographic animated Martin's Big Words, narrated by Michael Clarke Duncan (The Green Mile), winsomely combines collage art and vibrant watercolor paintings to present an age appropriate (ages 4-8) biography of Nobel Prize-winning civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. "In church, Martin sang hymns…. He listened to his father preach. These words made him feel good. 'When I grow up, I'm going to get big words, too.'" And he did. Emphasizing King's non-violent activism--from his role in the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 (sparked when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat for a white man) to his support of the Memphis city sanitation workers on the eve of his assassination on April 4, 1968--the program intercuts edited excerpts from King's speeches throughout ("I have a dream that one day down in Alabama…little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers"). Rather than simply offer text screens, however, Martin's "big words" are creatively presented--sweeping in towards the center of the image to coalesce into eloquent humanitarian messages of faith, hope, respect, and love. Recommended. Aud: E, P. (R. Pitman)