Co-authored by Andrew Aydin and drawn by Nate Powell, the book is the third in a trilogy of graphic novels or long-form comic books.
“A galvanizing account of [Lewis’] coming-of-age in the movement, it’s a capsule lesson in courage of conscience, a story that inspires without moralizing or simplifying in hindsight,” said Julian Lucas for the New York Times.
Lewis’ graphic novel has won many awards. “March: Book Three” won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature and four major American Library Association’s Youth Media Awards.
All of the “March” novels revolve around the Civil Rights Movement and American society in the 1960s. The trilogy opens and closes with scenes from the march in Selma in March 1965. The story unfolds through the eyes of Lewis, as an active member of the Civil Rights Movement. The trilogy is based on and modeled off of Alfred Hassler and Benton Resnik’s 16-page comic “Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story.”
“This book is for all of America,” Lewis said in a National Book Foundation interview on “March: Book Three.” “It is for all people, but especially young people, to understand the essence of the Civil Rights Movement, to walk through the pages of history to learn about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence, to be inspired to stand up to speak out and to find a way to get in the way when they see something that is not right, not fair, not just.”
After reading Lewis’ novel, all first-year students will participate in a group discussion about the book. The discussion helps students digest what they have read and dive further into the novel post-reading.
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