In my opinion, this was a very god informational book. This is a book about the legendary man known as Malcolm X. The book talks about some of the most important moments in Malcolm X's life, starting from his childhood and ending with his death. It talks about the difficult time in which Malcolm X lived, a time in America's history where a lot of white people thought that black black were inferior. Malcolm X was a man that fought for the equal rights of all individuals in America and stood up for what he believed in. This book is a great chapter book for children that are just starting to get into chapter books and are moving away from picture books. The language of the book flows nicely and not too complicated for children that are still getting into novels and chapter books. The writing of the book is well fit for children just starting to get into chapter books because the chapters are only about 5-6 pages long and are accompanied by black and white illustrations. Sentences are not too long and do not make it hard for young readers to follow along. The overall message of the book is to inform readers about the life of Malcolm X and the important things that he fought for. It does not go into a great amount of detail for any particular event but rather just gives the most important aspects of each individual detail. I think this is great for children are are just starting to read non-fiction literature and/or historical literature. ( )

In my opinion this book is just average. I have read other biographies on Malcom X and while some aspects of this book are good, they could be better. One thing I do like about this book are the illustrations presented in every chapter. The illustrations seem to be completed in charcoal or some sort of messy medium. This creates a feeling of unease and messiness. For example, in the first chapter there is a family kneeling on the ground protecting themselves from a member of the Ku Klux Klan. This illustration provides the reader with a massive amount of fear and uneasiness about the situation. One thing I don't like about this book is the organization of this book. The writer, Arnold Adoff, provides a lot of information about Malcom X's life as a child throughout majority of the book, but little information on how Malcom X's was influential later in life. This makes the reader a little confused, because it is supposed to be a book about a hero. Another thing I don't like about this book is the writing style. The author tries to make everything brief to reduce the complexity of the novel, but provides very little detail about anything. For instance, in the first chapter when the author talks about Malcom's family's house been torn apart. There is only one double-spaced page that says what is happening, but never goes into details about how things are getting torn apart or what the family's feelings are while this is happening. The main idea of this novel is that Malcom X was one of the most influential African Americans in history. ( )

I didn't know much about Malcolm X sadly before this biography. It was really sad to see how much he struggled throughout his life. A lot of people turn to dealing when their life isn't going as planned but it was great that in jail he was able to change and make a life for himself. ( )

My friend Adelle, a college professor who teaches adults with very low reading levels, asked if there were any interesting biographies out there written at a low reading level that aren't obviously for children so that it's not humiliating to carry around if you're an adult. This was one of them. Very simplistic biography of X that explained enough for someone to know what he was about, where he came from, and how he died. I never knew what the X stood for, so I got something out of it, too! ( )

I think that the Malcolm X biography did a pretty good job considering it would be for children in elementary school. A lot of the major details in his life are mentioned in the book. It also detailed his struggles in his childhood and how poorly while people treated him. I read the biography by Alex Haley, so I was looking for a lot of the life changing moments in his life that I know happened in this book. I was really happy to see the incident he went through in school included in this version of the book. It was when Malcolm told his English teacher he wanted to become a lawyer and his teacher told him black boys didn’t become lawyers and he should be a carpenter instead.
I didn’t care for the ending where the author said “Malcolm X is loved every place that black people live.” The author made a lot of generalities about black people and how they felt. It just came off as very condescending and I didn’t like it. Other than that I think I would probably have this book in my library. I will definitely have the Alex Haley version, but this would be good for a quick read for my students to get a big picture of Malcolm X. ( )