Selina Alko (B Is for Brooklyn) recounts the landmark 1967 case Loving v. Virginia as a quest by two people who want to raise their interracial family in their hometown of Central Point, Va., where their marriage is "unlawful."
Alko frames complex themes in the simplest terms. "Donald, Peggy, and Sidney had two parents who loved them, and who loved each other," she begins. Gouache and acrylic paints depict the swirling grays of their front stoop, a heart-colored pink door, and the three siblings playing with toys as their parents' watch. Collage elements depict music wafting from inside, accompanied by birds and butterflies. Husband-and-wife team Selina Alko and Sean Qualls (Dizzy) convey the bond between Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving in every composition, from that opening family portrait to the final image when they've won their case. Even as the artists introduce them--he's "a fair-skinned boy who got quickly sunburned in July," and she has "skin a creamy caramel"--their individual portraits are two in a town "where people every shade from the color of chamomile tea to summer midnight made their homes."
Aware that they couldn't be legally married in Virginia, Loving and Jeter wed in Washington, D.C., then returned to Virginia to make their home. They were soon arrested. A series of collage spreads chart their progress through the U.S. Supreme Court Building and, full circle, with the family reunited on the stoop where they started, "Happily (and legally!) ever after." In this uplifting tale, love truly conquers all. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness