Listen To My Dream by Debi Pearl

In December of 2009 the Pearls published the book Listen To My Dream, a children’s level biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. The publisher is Pearl Books, LLC.

The book covers the life of King from childhood through his death in 1968 and is written as a narrative poem. It opens with King asking his mother why he was black and wasn’t treated like others. Later, his teacher encouraged him to dream big dreams to help others. He decided that was just what he would do.

At that time the Negroes, or ‘colored’ as they were called then, were not given the same freedoms as other people in the south. Thus, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her front bus seat for a white person, King organized a boycott of the Montgomery, Alabama bus system until colored people were treated equally. This eventually led to the Supreme Court ruling of 1956 that outlawed discrimination such as this.

The children’s part of the book is written as a poem, emphasizing the importance of setting goals and sticking to them. It ends after King’s funeral following his murder on April 4, 1968.

Listen To My Dream is a 40 page book written in two parts. The first poetic part, as mentioned above, outlines King’s life and influence in bringing about racial equality. The second part, written as a narrative, relates more detail about the civil rights movement itself and how King’s work influenced the laws.

Debi and Michael Pearl drew all the illustrations for the first part of the book. The poem can’t say everything but when an important hint is given, often a detail is included separately to explain it. For example, the poem hinted at an influence for dreaming big but the note stated that encouragement came from his elementary teacher Miss Lemon.