According to Lawrence, his sequence of paintings, begun in 1940 when he was 22 years old, involves the "exodus of African-Americans who left their homes and farms in the South around the time of World War I and traveled to northern industrial cities in search of better lives." This book reproducing the entire series in full color was published on the occasion of the 1993 exhibition "Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series." Images of dignity and hope are mingled with those of hard work and harsh experience created in what became panels containing an epic sweep of a people on the move. Lawrence's introduction and brief narrative accompanying the paintings offer insights into this aspect of U.S. history and his immediate family's migration experience. The closing page of this significant book contains a poem by Walter Dean Myers in which tribute is paid to the theme of the paintings and to the people. (Ages 9 and older)

Around the time of WWI, large numbers of African Americans began leaving their homes in the rural South in search of employment in the industrial cities of the North. In 1940, Lawrence chronicled their journey of hope in a flowing narrative sequence of paintings."This stirring picture book brings together the sixty panels of Lawrence's epic narrative Migration series, which he created in 1940-1941. They tell of the journey of African-Americans who left their homes in the South around World War I and traveled in search of better lives in the northern industrial cities. Lawrence is a storyteller with words as well as pictures: his captions and introduction to this book are the best commentary on his work. A poem at the end by Walter Dean Myers also reveals [as do the paintings] the universal in the particulars." ––BL.

Notable Children's Books of 1994 (ALA)
1993 Books for Youth Editors' Choices (BL)
1994 Teachers' Choices (IRA)
Notable 1994 Childrens' Trade Books in Social Studies (NCSS/CBC)
1994 Carter G. Woodson Outstanding Merit Book (NCSS)
1994 Books for the Teen Age (NY Public Library)