Giant Steps to Change the World - Hardcover

Spike Lee is one of the most prominent and influential media figures today. His films include the critically acclaimed School Daze; Academy Award nominee Do the Right Thing; Malcolm X; Clockers; and 25th Hour. Born in Atlanta, Spike attended Morehouse College and NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, where he earned his master of fine arts degree in film production. Spike and his wife are the authors of Please, Baby, Please, their first picture book with Simon & Schuster. They live in New York City with their two children.

Tonya Lewis Lee is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the University of Virginia School of Law. As a children's television producer she has worked with Disney, Nickelodeon, and Noggin/The N, where she was the executive producer of the award-winning documentary I Sit Where I Want: The Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education and the critically acclaimed miniseries Miracle's Boys. She is also the author of Gotham Diaries, her first novel.

Sean Qualls has created art for magazines, newspapers, advertisements and children's books. His work is a mixed media combination of painting, drawing, and collage. Sean is the illustrator of Before John was a Jazz Giant, which received the Coretta Scott King Honor award; The Baby on the Way (FSG), a New York Times Notable Book, Powerful Words (Scholastic); Poet Slave of Cuba (HENRY HOLT), a BCCB Blue Ribbon Book; How We Are Smart (Lee & Low) and Dizzy (Scholastic) an ALA Notable, Kirkus Best Book, BCCB Blue Ribbon Book, School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, Booklist Editors' Choice, Horn Book Magazine Fanfare Book, and a Child Magazine Best Book. His first book with Simon and Schuster is Little Cloud and Lady Wind (Spring 2010) by Toni and Slade Morrison. He lives with his wife and son in Brooklyn, New York.

Gr 3-6-This motivational book braces readers for the obstacles that come along when following one's dreams. The endpapers have 12 quotes from various people, including Mother Teresa, Jean-Michel Basquiat, the Tuskegee Airmen, and neurosurgeon Ben Carson. On the title page, a child with black curly hair looks up a staircase. The narration that follows is directed toward the youngster. "Listen to the whispers of those that came before....They made giant steps to make the world a better place and left big shoes for you to fill." Neither names nor portraits pepper the spreads; instead, visual metaphors and advice extrapolated from the experiences of the individuals are quoted: "If you stare at a painting and do not see yourself there, paint your own portrait. Let the world see that you do exist...." The spreads have key verbs in a larger typeface to emphasize actions that lead to change ("Press on," "make a plan"), and the abstract, mixed-media paintings with bits of collage are vivid with meaning. Suspense sets in when the giant steps turn into segments of a red dragon eliciting the fears that threaten all those who dream of a better world. Expert pacing ensues, bringing the narrator to ask the child, and all readers by extension, the resounding and evocative question, "What's your next step going to be?"-Sara Lissa Paulson, American Sign Language and English Lower School PS 347, New York City (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.