The Power of Words can Make a Difference
There are many picture book biographies about Martin Luther King and Anne Frank. But none of their biographies that I have read are as memorable as the unique parallel narrative Martin and Anne. Even the concept of the book is surprising. Anne Franke died a decade before King’s Civil Rights activities became National news. But Nancy Churnin’s powerful biography has an impact that does more then inform the reader about the facts of Martin and Anne’s lives. The book teaches children about two people who died because of prejudice but stresses the theme of dreams and hope. Martin Luther King Day is quickly followed by International Holocaust Remembrance Day just a week later. This unique book is perfect for addressing both Civil Rights and Holocaust education.
About Nancy Churnin
NANCY CHURNIN is an award-winning children’s book author who writes books about people who have made the world a better place and inspire children to be heroes and heroines, too. She won the 2021 National Jewish Book Award and 2022 Sydney Taylor Honor for Dear Mr. Dickens, a true story that is the subject of an educational program offered by The Charles Dickens Museum in London, and two Sydney Taylor Notables, for her 2021 A Queen to the Rescue, the Story of Henrietta Szold Founder of Hadassah and 2018 Irving Berlin, the Immigrant Boy Who Made America Sing. Born and raised in New York City, Nancy lives in the Dallas area. Among her other book honors: Texas 2X2, Topaz Award, National Federation of Press Women First Place Award; Texas Federation of Press Women First Place Award; the South Asia Book Award; Sakura Medal finalist; Books for a Global Society Notable; two Junior Library Guild selections; multiple Social Studies Notable Trade books for Young People; multiple Kids Choice Awards finalists; multiple Silver Eureka Award-winners; multiple Bank Street College Best Children’s Book List books; multiple A Mighty Girl books; 10 books featured on socialjusticebooks and starred reviews from School Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly. All her books come with free teacher guides, resources and projects on her website, nancychurnin.com
Interview with Author
Q. You have written several picture book biographies that introduce children to people who have made a difference in the world. Most of these books are about people who were never famous; others may have once been household names but are no longer known to most people. Martin and Anne is also about people who made a difference in the world. However, this book is unique. It is about people who are famous. There have been numerous books about them. But none quite like this. Instead of one person’s story, it is about two people who, on the surface, are worlds apart. What inspired the idea of a book that covers both of their lives?
A. I was deeply distressed and feeling helpless about the rise of hate crimes in the United States. That led me to try to think about people who did not lose hope in dark times. I immediately thought of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Anne Frank because of their inspirational words that envisioned a better world, holding fast to love and kindness, even as they faced injustice and hate. As I read about their lives, I was stunned to realize that they were born in the same year – 1929, the year of the stock market crash and the start of the Great Depression. I explored their journeys more deeply and realized how many challenges they faced at the same ages – not being able to go to their neighborhood schools because of segregation, both turned away from public places, Martin because of the color of his skin and Anne because of being Jewish. It struck me that telling the story of their parallel lives could show the larger picture of how prejudice follows a dangerous pattern, starting with segregation and ending with persecution and violence and how the groups targeted for persecution may look different in different places and different times but that prejudice is always wrong.
Q. Why did you write this book?
A. I wanted kids to see how two people who seem as different on the surface as Martin & Anne – different races, genders, religions, countries — had so much in common, just as we all have so much in common. Truly, we are one human family and just as we protect our sisters and brothers, we need to remember that we are all sisters and brothers. Martin & Anne each died at such young ages. I hope this book reminds young readers what a profound loss it was to all of us to lose them both – indeed what a tragedy it is to lose anyone to hate crimes — and that it will inspire all of us to do what we can to protect the vulnerable among us so that everyone has a chance to live and enjoy their lives and enrich all of ours with their presence.
Q. The first several pages talk about the similarities between their early experiences. The illustrations by Yevgenia Nayberg brilliantly highlight this with spreads that show similar scenes of both of them on facing pages. Do you have any favorites?
A. I love ALL of Yevgenia’s drawings and have many favorites. The spreads where we see them both on separate pages are spectacularly moving, especially as they subtly build up to a spread where it almost looks as if they are looking at each other across the ocean that divides them, reminding us that the world is not as big as we sometimes think it is. That’s a point that Dr. King made when he said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
The image I spend the most time on when I share the book with children, however, is the spread where the Nazis raid Anne’s home. What is so remarkable about those two pages is how much Yevgenia shows without telling. You don’t see frightened faces. You don’t see guns. You don’t see Nazi flags or armbands. She uses a somber color to evoke an ominous feeling. She fills the bottom of the pages with storm clouds. She puts a small, askew house with a flash of light in the right-hand corner that conveys how small and helpless Anne must have felt when the officers arrest them. There is no mistaking the emotions on the page but because Yevgenia eschewed literal choices for visual metaphors, a child is able to process the feelings, portrayed in an honest, but age-appropriate way.
Q. What do you hope that readers will take away from this book?
A. I always write my books with the hope that the experience doesn’t end with the last page, that a child experiencing the story will consider what they can do to help heal the world, to make it kinder and more just. I hope that kids who are facing prejudice will see themselves in Martin & Anne and know how special and important they are and what gifts they have to share. I hope that kids that see others facing prejudice will be inspired to find a way to protect them, to let them know they are valuable and loved.
Q. What kind of reactions have you seen from readers?
A. I am thankful for the many many teachers, librarians, and museum educators who have shared the way that Martin & Anne have moved their students and how the book has led to powerful discussions about community and protecting each other. Every year, I am asked to present the book at Venus Middle School in Venus, Texas as a bridge between their civil rights and Holocaust units. They have an extraordinary Holocausts unit designed by educator Benjamin Vollmer that ends in a trip to the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum. Venus has become like a second home to me with so much love and support from the teachers, librarians, and students. I share my personal story that informs my dedication; my mother’s grandmother and uncles were killed in their synagogue by Nazis marching through their city of Bialystok in Poland on the way to Russia. I put that dedication in the book so that my family members who have no graves, and all victims of hate crimes, would have a place to live. Every year when I go to Venus, I feel we are honoring them together and that is of great comfort to me.
Q. Can you tell me about the Kindred Spirits project?
A. To honor Martin & Anne and to help their vision of our common humanity grow, I created the Kindred Spirits project to encourage kids to reach out to kids from other neighborhoods, cities, states, and countries to help each other. One of my favorite examples of kids taking this project to heart happened in Amarillo, Texas. Second through fifth graders at South Georgia Elementary heard about immigrants being attacked in El Paso and decided to send books to them, discuss the books with them, and show them they were loved. Here is the story that ran on their local TV station: https://www.myhighplains.com/news/local-news/the-kindred-spirits-project
It is my hope that more kids and schools will be inspired to reach out to others to show them they are loved, too. I encourage everyone who participates to send a photo with a caption about what they have done so I can post it on my Kindred Spirits page on my website.
Q. This book not only sends the message of kindness and that we are all family, but it is also a great starting point for teaching about both the Civil rights movement and the holocaust. I recall reading a recent social media post that you made about a school author visit where the students knew about Martin Luther King Jr but didn’t know anything about the Holocaust. Tell us about that.
A. Because this is a picture book, many of the elementary school readers that read picture books have known about Dr. King from an early age because we honor his birthday and his mission from the youngest ages on. But the Holocaust and, in particular, The Diary of Anne Frank, is usually deemed more appropriate for middle and high school. So many kids in elementary schools do not know who Anne Frank is. And many schools where I have presented have no Jewish students at all; sometimes I am the first Jewish person they have met. It has been a powerful experience for me to share Anne Frank’s story in a way that opens the eyes of young readers to the fact that both Anne and Dr. King were discriminated against because they belonged to minority groups in cultures where powerful forces consolidated money and power by dividing people and convincing them that minorities were causing their problems. Instead of seeing Dr. King’s story as a story about Blacks vs. Whites, the parallel of Anne Frank reframes the larger story of discrimination as majority culture vs. minority culture, which leads them to question who is served by turning people against each other. And couldn’t we all, or someone we love, be potential victims of hate? By connecting the horrors of antisemitism that Anne faced with the horrors of racism that Dr. King faced, it opens doors to recognizing how terrible all forms of prejudice and discrimination are.
Q. I know that the book has been translated into both Chinese and Braille, why is the Braille edition so special to you?
A. I am thrilled about both. It’s wonderful to think of children in China, who might not be that familiar with Dr. King or Anne Frank, meeting them in this book. Because of limited resources, the National Braille Press has to be very selective in what books it chooses to translate into Braille. I was so moved when they told me that Martin & Anne was a book that they wanted their kids to have. I wrote an article about the Braille translation for Paths to Literacy, a website collaboration between the Perkins School for the Blind and the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. In the article, I talked about how the similarities of Martin’s and Anne’s experiences was in part due to the fact that Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany, sent his lawyers to the American South to study the Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation and made sure that Blacks didn’t have the same rights as other Americans. Hitler used those same laws as the basis of his Nuremberg Laws, which enforced segregation and made sure Jews didn’t have the same rights as other citizens. Of course, just as Blacks were not the only group that experienced persecution in America, Jews were not the only group that experienced persecution in Nazi Germany. Hitler also discriminated against the visually impaired. Whenever prejudice is accepted, minorities are the first at risk.
Q. This book has won awards and been used in several prestigious projects, tell us about some of those.
A. The most recent, moving honor for Martin & Anne was to be included in the Drawn Together exhibit, curated by Dr. Tatia Gruenbaum, at the Bergen-Belsen Memorial in 2025 at the site where Anne was interned. Dr. Gruenbaum has created wonderful programs for this exhibit:
As a Hamilton fan I was thrilled when the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History chose Martin & Anne for its #HamiltonReads program, with actor Daniel Yearwood, from the Broadway musical reading the book and discussing it with a master teacher.
Other highlights include:
2024 Brave Girls Storytime at the National Women’s History Museum
2024 Small but Mighty Storytime at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfhWQltN3vo
2024 “The Stories We Tell our Young Children: Using Picture Books to Explore Race and Black-Jewish Relations,” by Meir Muller and Eliza Allen, The Journal of Jewish Education:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15244113.2024.2341422
2023-2024 California Reads Recommended Book
2023 Holocaust Memorial Day reading at Lighthouse Poole in Westbourne, UK
2022 Pentacrest Museums University of Iowa panel extrapolating themes of identity, coming of age, expression, mental health, racism, prejudice, resilience, and social justice
2020-2021 Louisiana Young Readers Choice Award List: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm4k8-GOp7U&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nancychurnin.com%2F&source_ve_path=OTY3MTQ
2020 Notable Book for a Global Society, International Literacy Association
2020 New York City Department of Education Civics for All list
2020 Featured at the Museum of Tolerance, L.A.
2020 Dodd Institute for Human Rights Puppets’ Rights Workshop for Educators: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=44&v=1nXuoi8H6lA&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nancychurnin.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY
2020 Featured at the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights in Boise, Idaho
2020 PJ Library Jewish Books to Read in Honor of MLK Jr.
2020 Jewish Book Council list: Civil Rights and Race
2020 Wisconsin State Reading Association Picture This list
2020 Northern Lights Book Award Winner in the Historical Category
2020 The Pirate Tree pick for its Social Justice and Children’s Literature list
2019 Ruby Bridges Reading Festival featured book at the National Civil Rights Museum
2019 Religion News Service: https://religionnews.com/2019/01/17/martin-luther-king-jr-and-anne-frank-contemporaries-with-a-common-legacy/
2019 Brave Bookshelf book from ParentMap
2019 Book of the month for eMissourian in Education
2019 Featured book at the Tulisoma South Dallas Book Fair at the African American Museum in Fair P
2019 Here Wee Read Ultimate List of Diverse Children’s Books
2019 Presentation of Martin & Anne at the annual New York City Public School Librarians’ Conference following a performance of Letters from Anne and Martin, developed and produced by the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect in NYC
Q. Although I centered this interview on this fantastic dual biography, I wanted to discuss your upcoming books. Most of your books are biographies, but you have a board book coming out in a couple of weeks. Purim Baskets is adorable. This cute book from PJ Publishing comes out on February 2 and addresses the idea of Purim Baskets (shalach manot in Hebrew) in a sway that will delight toddlers and preschoolers. I can’t wait to share it with my grandson. What gave you this idea?
A. Credit for this one goes to my cat Gloria Swanson, who judges a book based on the number of cats inside. She loved my first board book, Counting on Shabbat, which has four cats – I hit a feline grand slam with that one. So, when I was thinking about another board book, this time about Purim, I thought about how we give shalach manot – gift baskets – to family and friends. And since Gloria is both, I figured she deserved a Purim basket. But I also realized that a cat would enjoy different things than a human. Before I knew it, I was writing a rhyming guessing game where kids figure out which creature gets which basket based on the treats inside. Now, there’s only one cat in this one (along with other cute critters), but I am hoping Gloria won’t object to a dog getting a basket, too, especially since she is rather fond of our dog named Dog. I always hope that my books lead to kids doing good things and in the case of Purim Baskets, I hope this story encourages kids to remember and be good to their pets and animals in need at shelters.
Q. I know that you also have a book from Creston Books releasing next September. Can you tell us anything about The Miracle Menorah of Mariupol?
A. The Miracle Menorah of Mariupol is a true story of how the Jewish community of Mariupol in Ukraine, scattered by the horrific war that leveled their synagogue, found hope in an unexpected place. The day before Hanukkah, the synagogue’s caretaker, Andrei, found the community’s four-foot menorah in the rubble. And here was the first miracle – despite every other metal object being melted by the bombs, there was not a dent or a ding on the menorah. With the help of the rabbi, who had been in Israel when war began and unable to return, Andrei lit the candles for each night of Hanukkah. And while the people weren’t there in person, they were together in spirit, which was the second miracle — feeling the glow of the lights in their hearts, which gave them courage to persevere. The book moves back and forth in time, reminding readers of the first Hanukkah when the Maccabees reclaimed the Great Temple in Jerusalem and discovered and decided to light a menorah they found to bring hope to the community.
Thank you, Nancy. Martin and Anne teaches us about the power of words. This book and all your biographies teach readers that we can all make a difference. You have used the power of words to make a difference too and I look forward to reading more of your stories.
Martin & Anne:
The Kindred Spirits of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Anne Frank
Picture Book Biography
Publisher : Creston Books
Publication date : March 5 2019
Learn More about Nancy Churnin
Find out more about Nancy and her books at nancychurnin.com
You can learn about all her books and download teacher guides and activities for each one.
Follow Julie Ditton, Storybook Lady on Social media:
For more books like this one, you can read Julie Ditton’s reviews of this and other books by Nancy Churnin, other children’s biographies, books on about Martin Luther King, black history or the holocaust.
