Threads of Peace: How Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Changed the World

Gr 7-10--While Martin Luther King, Jr.'s adoption of the strategy of nonviolence for the civil rights movement had its roots in India, few are aware of the exchange of philosophies between Mohandas Gandhi and Black activist leadership beginning in the 1920s. The volume begins with key moments of discrimination experienced by King on a bus at the age of 15 and Gandhi on a train in South Africa, and progresses into nine chapters covering Gandhi's life and work and 14 on King, with a few concluding chapters reinforcing themes and discussing their modern impact. Captioned photographs, pull quotes, vocabulary definitions, and sidebars pepper the text, offering students insights in an attractive format. While the work occasionally struggles to condense complex Indian politics into a few sentences, the largely narrative text benefits from key quotes that are meticulously sourced in the page-by-page notes in the back matter. Krishnaswami also points out the contradictory philosophies or opinions of the two leaders' contemporaries. An author's note, parallel time lines, and a comprehensive glossary, as well an extensive bibliography and index also provide researchers with wonderful starting points. VERDICT An in-depth and well-researched volume that complements existing YA biographies on these two individuals by forging a little-known connection between American Black activism and the Indian nonviolent movement.--Courtney Lewis, St. Catherine's Sch., Richmond, VA