The Greatest: Muhammad Ali

Walter Dean Myers

Apr 2009 · Recorded Books · Narrated by J.D. Jackson

About this audiobook

"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee." This was one of the most famous catch-phrases of boxing legend Muhammad Ali. Rising from poverty-stricken Louisville in the 1950s he became one of the world's greatest athletes. Beginning life as Cassius Clay, Ali would struggle against opponents both in and out of the ring. Segregation and racism stood as obstacles in his path, but as he climbed the boxing ranks, his social conscience grew. He refused to be pigeonholed as a stereotypical black athlete in the 1960s and changed his name to Muhammad Ali after converting to Islam. Fighting for social justice even as his brutal profession took its toll on his body and mind, his spirit was never defeated. Best-selling author of the Coretta Scott King Honor book Monster, Walter Dean Myers pens this inspirational biography of a true champion. Acclaimed narrator JD Jackson adds the perfect voice to this triumphant true story. "... the kind of universal story that needs a writer as talented as Myers to retell it for every generation."-Booklist

Ratings and reviews

mahamid Alli was like a doorknob everyone gets a turn to knock him down verbally.

About the author

Walter Dean Myers was born on August 12, 1937 in Martinsberg, West Virginia. When he was three years old, his mother died and his father sent him to live with Herbert and Florence Dean in Harlem, New York. He began writing stories while in his teens. He dropped out of high school and enlisted in the Army at the age of 17. After completing his army service, he took a construction job and continued to write. He entered and won a 1969 contest sponsored by the Council on Interracial Books for Children, which led to the publication of his first book, Where Does the Day Go? During his lifetime, he wrote more than 100 fiction and nonfiction books for children and young adults. His works include Fallen Angels, Bad Boy, Darius and Twig, Scorpions, Lockdown, Sunrise Over Fallujah, Invasion, Juba!, and On a Clear Day. He also collaborated with his son Christopher, an artist, on a number of picture books for young readers including We Are America: A Tribute from the Heart and Harlem, which received a Caldecott Honor Award, as well as the teen novel Autobiography of My Dead Brother. He was the winner of the first-ever Michael L. Printz Award for Monster, the first recipient of the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement, and a recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults. He also won the Coretta Scott King Award for African American authors five times. He died on July 1, 2014, following a brief illness, at the age of 76.