You have such a sacred responsibility when you touch John Lewis's story, when you touch the story of the movement. You don't want to leave anything out, but you want to tell a good story so the people will read it and they're engaged and they don't fall apart with extraneous details.

I think this ['March']is essential reading to understand the Black Lives Matter movement. I think it's also essential reading for the Black Lives Matter movement, so that they understand the political context that they're engaging in.

I think people who agree with Donald Trump have repeatedly made the case that he should be able to say whatever he wants to say, it's time someone did that. But as we go and speak to the kids, the young people who are reading March, we see the fear, we hear them tell us how scared they are.

What crystallized the importance of speaking out like that - of making nonviolence not just a tool or a tactic, but a way of life - was in San Diego [at Comic-Con]. One of the young girls who marched with us was wearing a hijab, and she came up to me afterward because I talked about my beard, and I talked about why I was doing it, and she came up and she gave me a hug, and she was crying. And she said, "Thank you. You have no idea how the other students treat me because they're shown that this is OK by Donald Trump. Thank you for speaking out."

We're [also] trying to talk to a generation who grew up on the Internet. They're digital natives, and, essentially, they speak through sequential storytelling. I mean, a good comic-book panel is not that much different than a meme.

It's important to realize that the series actually grows with the reader. "March: Book One" is a great introduction for kids as young as eight or nine years old. But then they grow with the reader. Book Two is bigger, Book Three is even bigger. And they grow more violent and more confrontational.

Nothing surprised me more, and meant more to me, than seeing an entire class of ninth graders mob Congressman [John] Lewis at a book festival.