Be the Light: How She Became Angela Davis
by Daria Peoples; illus. by the author
Primary    Greenwillow    56 pp.
6/25    9780063206786    $19.99

This picture-book biography of the educator and “passionate activist for equality and justice for all” emphasizes how the events of Davis’s (b. 1944) early life growing up in 1940s and 1950s Birmingham, Alabama, had a profound impact on her later work fighting segregation and racism. Bombings in her neighborhood by the Ku Klux Klan and “whites only” signs at the library, the amusement park, and the movie theater reminded her of societal restrictions, and she became angry. In a spiritual revelation following the death of her grandmother, she let go of her anger and acquired a special power: “the ability to see new freedoms and new futures.” Davis could envision a new world “where segregation, like slavery, was abolished, where God ordained love, and all were welcome.” During adulthood, she became a professor, a political activist for prisoners, and a prisoner herself. While incarcerated, she shared her power with the other women; after her acquittal and release, she became an abolitionist and remains one today. Peoples’s reverent narrative and evocative digitally rendered gouache-like illustrations vibrantly convey the essence of Davis’s unwavering activism and resolute optimism for a new world. Back matter includes an author’s note and a timeline.

From the July/August 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.