Today’s choice is easy.

My amazingballs aunt Elizabeth Levy, who is a children’s book author, has a problem. (Well, it’s not really a problem, unless you’re not the kind of person that likes every single surface of your home covered in books, especially your children’s rooms). Luckily, I am not that person.

So my aunt’s…let’s call it a tic, not a problem, is to give us an incredibly generous and insane number of books. Many of them are signed. In fact, like some people might feel the need to bring you a snow globe or a magnet for your collection every time they see you, my aunt feels the need to bring us seven or eight more signed books. Like I said, this isn’t really a problem for someone like me, who thinks piles of books are exactly the style of home decor I’m looking for. It’s kind of the best.

Anyway, a few years ago Liz came to visit with a signed copy of this:

This book, for those who don’t know it, is MARTIN’S BIG WORDS by Doreen Rappaport, illustrated by Bryan Collier.

And it is wonderful. My children and I have read it on MLK Day every year since we got it, which was back when they were very small people who couldn’t read to themselves, and who were shocked and mystified that people got angry at him. Now they are big, these children of mine, and they devour books on their own all the time. But today we will read this together.

In it, we hear many of King’s famous quotes, but pulled out to create a narrative of his life in a way that children can follow and understand. It reminds us all of the wisdom of his words.

Happy Martin Luther King Day, everyone.

http://youtu.be/IF_qgqTFPCw