![](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/march-book-one-best-YA-book.jpg?quality=85&w=550)
As a young activist, the late John Lewis was inspired by the 1957 comic book Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story. Half a century later, long after he established himself as a major figure in the American Civil Rights Movement and became a Congressman, a chance conversation about that comic with a young campaign staffer named Andrew Aydin led the two to collaborate on a graphic-novel trilogy about Lewis’ life. March: Book One covers his childhood on a farm in Alabama, the Nashville lunch-counter sit-ins of 1960 and the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Lewis’ decision to tell his story through graphic novels targeted for a young-adult audience speaks to his belief in the power to create change by channeling the energy of his nation’s youth. —Shay Maunz