TWELVE ROUNDS TO GLORY: THE STORY OF MUHAMMAD ALI by Charles R. Smith Jr. (2007)

Illustrated by Bryan Collier. Candlewick Press; 80 pages; biography; ages 9-14; ISBN: 978-0-7636-1692-2.

Charles R. Smith Jr.'s picture-book biography of the legendary boxer is written as a series of poems, simultaneously emulating and paying tribute to its subject, whose famous pre-fight poems—"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee / His hands can't hit what his eyes can't see"—influenced the braggadocio of early rap music. Warmly illustrated by Bryan Collier, Twelve Rounds to Glory takes young readers through Ali's entire career, from his heavyweight-championship knockout of Sonny Liston in 1964 to his refusal to fight in the Vietnam War three years later, and continuing on to his popular and professional comeback in '74, when he beat his seven-years-younger opponent, George Foreman, to regain the heavyweight title. The book ends with a brief mention of Parkinson's disease, which Ali was diagnosed with in 1984.

Smith doesn't ignore the often ugly insults Ali slung at his opponents before fights, the worst of them reserved for Joe Frazier: "cutting even deeper / into his heart by dropping a bomb, / by insulting his blackness when you called him Uncle Tom." But for the most part this is a sunny-side-of-the-street biography, in which Ali's four marriages and eight children, two of which were born out of wedlock, are treated as a show of generosity on Ali's part, i.e., he had too much love for just one family! Smith's poetry shines brightest when he recounts Ali's various title bouts, including the 1974 "Rumble in the Jungle" versus Foreman in Zaire: "'IS THAT ALL YOU GOT? / IS THAT ALL YOU GOT?' / absorbing brick after brick, / taking shot after shot, / infuriating the Bull, / making his eyes see blood-red, / moving shots to the body / up top to the head."

Winner of Honor Book recognition from the Coretta Scott King Book Awards in 2008. For more of Smith's poetry, check out the basketball-themed Hoop Kings (2004). And to see a book trailer I created for Twelve Rounds to Glory, keep watching ...