We Are the Ship: The Story of the Negro League Baseball

The familiar spiritual is reinvigorated by the child-like perspective of Nelson’s illustrations. Luminous scenes show a child’s view of the world and how one handsome boy can literally hold it in his hands.

This survey of transformative events in American and African American history is presented in an informal text and striking illustrations in an oversized format.

“This picture-book biography matches Mandela’s outsize achievements with large, powerful images, resulting in a presentation that will seize and hold readers’ attention…Nelson’s paintings range from poignant, when Mandela’s mother tells him good-bye as he leaves home for more education at the age of nine, to exuberant, when Mandela and 100 men arrested for protesting apartheid respond by dancing and singing, to inspiring, when people organize rallies demanding his release. When freedom finally comes, ‘a colorful sea of people’ celebrate.” — School Library Journal