Selina Alko (B Is for Brooklyn) tells the story of the landmark case Loving v. Virginia as a quest by two people who love each other and who want to raise their children in their hometown of Central Point, Va., where their marriage is "unlawful."
Alko frames this picture book's complex themes in its 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 look on from the open doorway. Collage elements show music wafting from inside, accompanied by birds, butterflies and hearts. "[F]rom almost the moment Richard Loving met Mildred Jeter they wanted to get married and have a family. But for them, it wasn't that simple...."
In their artwork, husband-and-wife team Selina Alko and Sean Qualls (Dizzy; Before John Was a Jazz Giant) convey the bond between Jeter and 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 connect through a rainbow of diverse flesh-tone hues. Alko describes the town in 1958 as a place "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. Pointing to their marriage certificate, Loving was told by a policeman, "That's not good here!" The couple was released from jail but told they had to leave the state. Alko and Qualls depict D.C.'s streets, devoid of the flowers and trees of their hometown. In 1966, amid a sea of protest signs, the Lovings hire lawyers "to help fight for what was right." A series of collage spreads chart their progress--a sky's-the-limit blue backdrop to the U.S. Supreme Court Building, a pink background to the nine judges hearing the Lovings' lawyers' case ("Tell the court I love my wife" appears in collage and hand-lettering), a caramel-colored backdrop to the couple's triumphant embrace. The parting image comes full circle, with the family reunited on the stoop where they started, "Happily (and legally!) ever after."
An author's note about this story's personal significance to Alko and Qualls, suggested further reading and copious sources round out this uplifting tale in which love truly conquers all. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness
Shelf Talker: This picture-book rendering of a landmark civil rights case boils down complex issues to its essence as a love story.