The road won’t be easy. / People will try to exclude you, / but you must leap over hurdles— / like the Olympic athlete who won the gold / even though he had been relegated to second-class status / by the very country he was representing. In plainspoken free verse directed right to kids, this title introduces individuals who took giant steps to make the world a better place. Although the poems do not identify the mostly African American heroes directly, children (and those reading to them) will find them named in boxed quotes that appear on the front and end pages, and each image includes iconic clues: butterflies flutter around the boxing-ring scene of the heavyweight champion who refused / to pick up a gun against a fellow human being, for example. Rendered in paint, pencil, and collage, the artwork, featuring often-faceless figures, leaves space for young people to imagine their own stories and, like the poems, will inspire many children to match the pictures with the famous names and find out more.