I'd be interested in reading the original version though as Eig mentions in the audiobook arc that the original is over 650 pages. To have distilled that into this extremely accessible biography of King for teens took work but it works so well. I was riveted by the perspective it took that complimented the knowledge I had about King but also added new layers about his early years, particularly that he wasn't that great of a student and his questioning his competence which is what led to bouts of depression. It also mentions his marriage and children, particularly his infidelities. Yet Eig also shares plenty of his strengths as an orator and organizer.

It's a strong biography that I'm glad to have read.

5 stars

I thoroughly enjoyed this biography of Dr. Martin Luther King. I am a high school history teacher, I do not have time in my curriculum to read an entire biography, but I would recommend this one to students if they asked.. I liked how the author portrayed King as a real person not a figure head, with faults and insecurities. It reminds me of when I made a visit to the MLK birthplace in Atlanta and the park ranger told us a story of MLK and his brother using the head of their sister’s doll to play baseball. That story, and the stories in this book, help you understand that King’s mistakes, such as his infidelity to his wife, don’t detract from his mission. He was human and humans are fallible.

Thank you for the opportunity to read to listen to this audiobook.

This is aimed at younger readers, but I still feel like I learned some things. When I got my political science degree, I studied American politics and this part of history, which is fascinating and so much closer than people realize. The narration is fantastic, and the material is well-organized and presented fairly and logically. Thanks to NetGalley for letting me listen to this audiobook

This book was a well written and researched read about one of America’s most prominent civil rights leaders. I also learned about people like J. Edgar Hoover and Lyndon B Johnson.
The book did use lowercase w when referencing whites and upper case B when referencing blacks. In my opinion, both should be uppercase or both should be lowercase like it has been in the past. To do one or the other uppercase seems politically correct and unnecessary.
I did learn some things about King’s character that were not honorable, which is to be expected. We are all sinful and King was a man just like everyone else. Yet he is an example of someone whom God used to do great things despite his faults.

Thank you to Net Galley for the opportunity to review this book before its publication date.

This audiobook is adapted for young adults from the original book of the same title. The narration of this book is excellent and the story of King's life flows well through the books. It is definitely for young adults, not younger readers as there is a brief discussion of King's infidelity. Author Jonathan Eig gives a thoughtful description of Dr. King's dedication to the cause of civil rights for which he ultimately gives his life.

I listened to this one. The narration is great! The story itself is also told very well. I have read other books about King but there was definitely new material I have not read before.

Thank you to NetGalley for the arc in exchange for my review.

Thanks to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the digital copy of this audiobook; I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Last year, I read the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Martin Luther King Jr. and wrote this review:

‘Sometimes there’s nothing better for me than diving into an 800+ page biography of someone you know something about but want to know more. I opted to get the audiobook version of this book, which clocks in at more than 20 hours.

I’ve not read or listened to any other MLK Jr biographies, other than children’s biographies when I was growing up. What I know about King is what I’ve read in terms of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations’ work with civil rights legislation, and from what I’ve seen from a few documentaries on the subject of the Civil Rights Movement. So this comprehensive and well-researched biography was a must for me.

In some ways, there’s nothing new to see here, as most of the information that has come to light in recent years (like the release of FBI Files) has already been in the news. However, it’s good to go over all the new documents and form an extensive look at a complicated man. King was no saint, he certainly was a sinner, had blinders on sometimes when it came to the cause and refused to see the bigger picture, yet his influence cannot be denied.

There are some salacious truths about King’s personal life, and I’m not going to rehash them here, but they are mentioned in the book and not covered up in order to make King saint-like. I also pay attention to how a person treated their family and how the kids turned out. All of his kids say he was an absent father because of how much he travelled but was an active participant in their lives when he was around, which was rare. Coretta Scott King essentially raised those kids on her own, even before King’s assassination. His wife and children picked up the mantle and continued with his cause after he was gone.

The book isn’t perfect; as with any 800-page book, one often wonders why a certain tidbit was included and not edited out, but it is worth a read or listen if you want to strip away the built-up myth of Martin Luther King Jr and want to find the man behind it.’

This young-adult adaptation of said tome is just as effective as the original to drive home the fact that King was a man who tried to make the world of African Americans better through peaceful protest. This edition cuts out just about everything regarding his personal life and gets to the crux of what made the man. The narrator, Dion Graham, does a great job, and even does a fair impersonation of King. I can tell that this narration will help keep kids engaged and continue listening.

I’ve been wanting to read more about Dr. King, so I was really excited to get the opportunity to read an early copy of the YA edition of King: A Life. I’m impressed with how Eig was able to condense the much longer adult version without feeling like it was ‘dumbed down.’ This touches on many important milestones in Dr. King’s life. It’s easy to see the amount of research that went into this in order to portray Dr. King’s life as a whole. I learned so much about Dr. King and the civil rights movement while reading this that we were never taught in history classes. I also really appreciated the notes added at the end of the book that discuss the timeline of Dr. King’s life, questions for readers to think about after finishing, and the quote of a child asking if Dr. King had tattoos since it forces people to think of Dr. King as a person. I had both the ebook and audiobook for this, andI can’t recommend the audiobook enough. The narration by Dion Graham kept me fully invested and invoked so many emotions while reading that may not have hit as hard eyeball reading. This is such a compelling read that everyone should experience.