CORETTA SCOTT KING

An admiring portrait of a gifted singer who didn’t exactly stand back when her illustrious husband stepped on to the public stage.

As Krull puts it, Coretta Scott didn’t just break rules, she broke Rules—taking stands against racist laws and practices, yes, but also refusing to teach at an all-black school after being turned down at an all-white one, removing the word “obey” from her wedding vows, and rejecting her husband’s view that a woman’s place was in the home. She continued his work after his death, but before that, she led him into opposing the Vietnam War and “broadened his scope” to include many human rights issues. She had a voice “like a clear and powerful liquid,” and, according to her sister, as a child she had “an uncontrollable temper.” Similarly, in the co-published Mary Todd Lincoln (illustrated by Elizabeth Baddeley), Lincoln’s future wife is introduced as a demanding, fiercely intelligent “drama queen” who went on to be dubbed “Lady President” by her husband and “hellcat” by one of his male secretaries. In both volumes the illustrators ably depict their subjects from childhood on with features both recognizable and expressive.

Foibles and tragedies receive due acknowledgement, but readers should come away impressed by her uncommon independence of spirit and opinion.