MY DREAM OF MARTIN LUTHER KING

Ringgold embroiders her vision of King's life and message with scenes from a dream the narrator has had: Young Martin is turned away from a white school, gets caught up in a civil rights demonstration and is jailed, and marches with his parents in front of a huge crowd, all carrying bags of ``prejudice, ignorance, hate, violence and fear, which they intended to trade for hope, freedom, peace, awareness and love.'' She notes that ``some people had bigger bags than others, but everybody had something to trade.'' Her dream ends at King's funeral, with those bags in a huge pyre. Using a limited palette of subdued colors, Ringgold gives her scenes a simple, direct, childlike look, focusing attention on eloquent faces and large, particularly expressive eyes. This is her most accessible work since Tar Beach (1991), much less moiled and private than Aunt Harriet's Underground Railroad in the Sky (1992). (chronology) (Picture book/biography. 7-10)