Poetry for Young People: Langston Hughes by David Roessel

Summary: Gr. 6-9. Hughes' stirring poetry continues to have enormous appeal for young people. In this illustrated collection of 26 poems, Andrews' beautiful collage-and-watercolor illustrations extend the rhythm, exuberance, and longing of the words--not with literal images, but with tall, angular figures that express a strong sense of African American music, dreams, and daily life--while leaving lots of space for the words to "sing America." The picture-book format makes Hughes' work accessible to some grade-school children, especially for reading aloud and sharing, but the main audience will be older readers, who can appreciate the insightful, detailed introduction and biography, as well as the brief notes accompanying each poem, contributed by Hughes scholars Roessel and Rampersol. Their comments, together with the quotes from the poet himself, will encourage readers to return to the book to see how Hughes made poetry of his personal life, black oral and musical traditions, urban experience, and the speech of ordinary people. Whether the focus is the Harlem Renaissance, the political struggle, Hughes' African heritage, or the weary blues, this book will find great use in many libraries. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Classroom Implications:

A WORK TO TREASURE, November 5, 2006

Reviewer:

D. Blankenship (The Ozarks) -

I cannot think of a better way to introduce the poetry of Langston Hughes than this small volume. The selection is excellent and of interest you the young reader. The commentary is quite relevant as are the pictures which accompany it. I find that often now, our young people go all the way through the early grades in school and many of them have never heard of Hughes,much less read his poetry. This was the sort of stuff my generation and the generation before it grew up on and cut our teeth on. I do not feel I am any worse for the wear. I am fearful that we are bringing up an entire generation (rightfully or wrong, although I feel it is the later) of young folks who will have no appreciation to this great art form and will miss a lot. This book helps. This entire series helps, as a matter of fact and I certainly recommend you add this one and the others to your library. Actually, it is rather fun reading these with the young folk and then talking about them. Not only do you get to enjoy the work your self and perhaps bring back some great memories, but you have the opportunity to interact with your child or student. It is actually rather surprising what some of the kids come up with. I read these to my grandchildren and to the kids in my classes at school. For the most part, when I really get to discussing the work with them, they enjoy it. Recommend this one highly.

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Remember: The Journey to School Integration by Toni Morrison

Summary: Grade 3-8–This unusual blend of archival photographs, historical background, and fictional narrative brings to life the experiences and emotions of the African-American students who made the tumultuous journey to school integration. Dramatic, mostly full-page, black-and-white photographs make up the bulk of the book. An introduction sets the scene, and factual pages, consisting of several sentences, are scattered throughout. They explain the significance of the events, the trauma of racial conflict, the courage and determination of African Americans and their supporters, and the importance of remembering and understanding. With poignant simplicity and insight, Morrison imagines the thoughts and feelings of some of the people in the pictures. The wrenching, inspiring autobiographical school integration memoirs of first-grader Ruby Bridges (Through My Eyes [Scholastic, 1999]) and Little Rock Nine high school junior Melba Pettillo Beals (Warriors Don't Cry [Washington Square, 1995]) offer greater immediacy and convey a powerful message for future generations about the need for understanding, self-awareness, and self-respect. However, Morrison's reflective interpretation presents a gentler guide for younger readers. Appended are a chronology of "Key Events in Civil Rights and School Integration History"; "Photo Notes" that describe the actual date, location, and content of each picture; and a dedication that recalls the four young girls killed in the bombing of their Birmingham, AL, church in 1963. The provocative, candid images and conversational text should spark questions and discussion, a respect for past sacrifices, and inspiration for facing future challenges.–Gerry Larson, Durham School of the Arts, NC
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Classroom Implications: This text is "a gentle guide" for younger, less-experienced or highly sensitive readers. It is an interpretive text that straddles the lines between fiction and nonfiction (Morrison inserts thoughts/feelings to certain photographs in the text). This is a text that recounts AND reflects on the school desegration that the nation faced during the civil rights movement. Would be a nice pair with The Forbidden Schoolhouse: The True and Dramatic Story of Prudence Crandall and Her Students.

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The Forbidden Schoolhouse: The True and Dramatic Story of Prudence Crandall and Her Students by Suzanne Jurmain

Summary: Gr. 5-8. Jurmain has plucked an almost forgotten incident from history and has shaped a compelling, highly readable book around it. In 1831, Prudence Crandall opened a school for young white ladies. When asked by an African American teenager if she might join the class, Crandall, whose sympathies were with the abolitionists, agreed. So begins a jolting episode in which Crandall turned her school into one for girls of color, and is both tormented and sued by the citizenry of Canterbury, Connecticut, who wanted no part of African Americans in their town. Writing with a sense of drama that propels readers forward (and quoting the language of the day, which includes the word nigger), Jurmain makes painfully clear what Crandall and her students faced, while showing their courage as they stood up to those who tried to deter them. Printed on thick, snowy stock and including a number of sepia-toned and color photographs as well as historical engravings, the book's look will draw in readers. Children will be especially pleased by the appended material, which includes an epilogue that tells what became of the principals, as well as source notes for the many quotes. Ilene CooperCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Classroom Implications: What's great about this nonfiction text is that it's about desegregation but takes place in a northern setting! Students often read about desegregating schools in the South during the civil rights movement. But this book takes readers back to the 1800's in New England. This book is a nice transition from nonfiction picture books and nonfiction reading students engage in during high school. Therefore, this books is a perfect nonfiction read for the middle grades.

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Blues Journey by Walter Dean Myers

Summary: Gr. 5-8. The blues' deceptively simple rhyme scheme tracks the deeper feelings of lives that have been bruised. In this picture book for older readers, Myers offers blues-inspired verse that touches on the black-and-blue moments of individual lives. His son Christopher's images, which illustrate the call-and-response text, alternate between high spirited and haunting. Myers begins with a very necessary introduction to the history of the blues that includes an explanation of the rhyme scheme. Still, the level of sophistication necessary for kids to get into the book is considerable: "Strange fruit hanging, high in the big oak tree / Strange fruit hanging high in the big oak tree / You can see what it did to Willie, / and you see what it did to me." Myers' original verse is unsettling if young people know the reference from the Billie Holiday song, but unclear if they don't ("strange fruit" is defined in the glossary). The accompanying illustration, though it's one of the less inspired ones, helps clarify things--a boy walks in a crowd carrying a sign saying, "yesterday a man was lynched." But there's no cohesion between the spreads, and the next one features a blues singer at a mike: "The thrill is gone, but love is still in my heart . . . I can feel you in the music and it's tearing me apart." Much of Myers' poetry here is terrific, by turn, sweet, sharp, ironic, but it's the memorable collage artwork, executed in the bluest of blue ink and brown paper, that will draw readers first. Once inside the book, some children will immediately hear the songs the poetry sings; others will have to listen more closely. Ilene CooperCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Unique Features: This text blends nicely into a poetry or music study in the upper grade classrooms. A particularly complex nonfiction picture book, this text could be examined by higher level readers. The style of language in this "blues" book can compare nicely to Myer's Jazz writing style.

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Jazz by Walter Dean Myers

Summary: Grade 5-9–Expanding on Blues Journey (Holiday House, 2003), this talented father and son have produced new poetry and paintings to explore a wider repertoire of jazz forms. An introduction provides historical and technical background, briefly touching on influences, improvisation, rhythm, and race. Spreads then pulsate with the bold, acrylic-and-ink figures and distorted perspectives that interpret the multiple moods and styles set forth in the text. The poems begin Along the Nile with a drumbeat and conclude with the heat of a Bourbon Street band. The Myerses experiment aurally and visually with the forms themselves; thus, Stride alternates long, fast-paced lines in a white font with two-word percussive phrases in black, calling to mind a period piano score. Be-bop unleashes a relentlessly rhyming patter in black, punctuated by a blue cursive font that screams. The 15 selections also celebrate vocals, various instrumental combinations, a funeral procession, and Louis Armstrong; New Orleans as spirit and place is woven throughout. The expressionistic figures are surrounded by high-contrast colors in which the visible brushstrokes curve around their subjects, creating an aura that almost suggests sound waves. Wynton Marsaliss Jazz A B Z (Candlewick, 2005) offers an interesting comparison and complement: varied poetic forms and stylized, posterlike visuals present the lives of jazz musicians. Interaction with each inspired title informs the other and awakens interest in listening.–Wendy Lukehart, Washington DC Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Unique Features: This text pairs nicely with Jazz ABZ by W. Marsalis and is an excellent, current picture book that focuses on jazz music. Jazz is a more advanced picture book and is highly usable in the upper grades classroom. Students studying poetry will learn about rhythm, rhyme and tone though this book.

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Jazz ABZ: An A to Z Collection of Jazz Portraits by Wynton Marsalis and Paul Rogers

Summary: Ages 9 & Up–Fans of poetry, jazz, and modern art will love this book. With Marsalis handling the words and Rogers the graphics, they have created an illustrated catalog of great jazz innovators from A (Louis Armstrong) to Z (Dizzy Gillespie). Large, colorful, LP-size paintings of the forefathers and mothers of jazz face cleanly printed, sometimes shaped poetry. The stylized artwork is gorgeous, evoking the spirit of pop art, Blue Note album covers, and 1920s advertising art. Particularly eye-catching are the images of Thelonious Monk (an homage to early-20th-century food-label graphics) and Eubie Blake (with hands and a keyboard integrated into the poem), but every page is a delight to behold. Although Marsalis includes 27 different poetic forms, his poems move along similarly at the pace of a drum solo. The selections are visual, but work best when read aloud like slam poetry, beat poetry, or hip-hop. Particular highlights are a playful Miles Davis selection and a challenging performance poem for Art Blakey. In addition to the information about the musicians embedded in the poems, short biographical sketches are included. This uncommon alphabet book will delight readers and deserves a place in most library collections.–Steev Baker, Kewaskum Public Library, WI Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Unique Features: A great alphabet book for older students' libraries. This text contains biographies of jazz musicians and the illustrations are presented in unique art deco format. Great to use in a study on jazz music and African American heritage.

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If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson

Summary: Ages 10-up. Once again, Woodson (I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This) handles delicate, even explosive subject matter with exceptional clarity, surety and depth. In this contemporary story about an interracial romance, she seems to slip effortlessly into the skins of both her main characters, Ellie, an upper-middle-class white girl who has just transferred to Percy, an elite New York City prep school, and Jeremiah, one of her few African American classmates, whose parents (a movie producer and a famous writer) have just separated. A prologue intimates heartbreak to come; thereafter, sequences alternate between Ellie's first-person narration and a third-person telling that focuses on Jeremiah. Both voices convincingly describe the couple's love-at-first-sight meeting and the gradual building of their trust. The intensity of their emotions will make hearts flutter, then ache as evidence mounts that Ellie's and Jeremiah's "perfect" love exists in a deeply flawed society. Even as Woodson's lyrical prose draws the audience into the tenderness of young love, her perceptive comments about race and racism will strike a chord with black readers and open the eyes of white readers ("Thing about white people," Jeremiah's father tells him, "they know what everybody else is, but they don't know they're white"). Knowing from the beginning that tragedy lies just around the corner doesn't soften the sharp impact of this wrenching book. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Themes: Inter-racial dating, Families, Membership, Prejudice

Classroom Implications: If a classroom was focusing on author study book clubs, this would be an excellent book to start with in a J. Woodson group. There are several of her books posted on this blog. This book is great for teaching first- and third-person narration, membership, prejudice, and descriptive language.

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The Voice that Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights by Russell Freedman

Gr. 4-8. In lush operatic style, Pam Munoz Ryan's picture-book biography When Marian Sang (2002), with beautiful illustrations by Brian Selznick, celebrated the triumph of the great African American vocalist in the face of the vicious segregation of her time. Now for middle-grade and junior-high readers comes this handsome, spaciously designed photo-biography. In his signature prose, plain yet eloquent, Freedman tells Anderson's triumphant story, with numerous black-and-white documentary photos and prints that convey her personal struggle, professional artistry, and landmark civil rights role. Everything leads up to her 1939 historic performance at the Lincoln Memorial, where, denied the right to sing at Constitution Hall, she thrilled a crowd of 75,000 and a national radio audience. Freedman reveals that Anderson never invited political confrontation, but with the support of such friends as Eleanor Roosevelt, she had a profound effect on the nation. Documentation is an essential part of her exciting story, with many pages of source notes as well as an enthusiastic, annotated bibliography, and, of course, a discography. Older readers and adults will want this, too. Hazel RochmanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Classroom Implications: Pairing this book with Ryan's picture book is a great way to make nonfiction texts accessible for the intermediate and upper grade classrooms. This book is an essential for biography studies and nonfiction reading.

Additional Information and Links on Marian Anderson

Skills and Strategies

• Determining Importance
• Fact and Opinion
• Retelling
• Scanning
• Summarizing

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Show Way by Jacqueline Woodson

Kindergarten-5. A Show Way is a quilt with secret meanings, and the image works as both history and haunting metaphor in this exquisite picture book. Based on Woodson's own history, the unforgettable story tells of African American women across generations, from slavery and the civil rights movement to the present. The cut-out jacket design is impressive, as is Talbott's mixed-media artwork inside, which extends Woodson's clear poetic narrative with beautiful collages that make use of big triangles, squares, and curves to emphasize portraits and landscapes and show connections and courage. The first double-page spread is of anguished separation when Soonie's great-grandmother is sold "without her ma or pa." Growing up on a plantation in South Carolina, Soonie learns from Big Mama about children "growing up and getting themselves free," and also how to sew quilts with signs that show the way to freedom. Time passes: Soonie's granddaughter, Georgiana, has twin girls who march for freedom in the 1960s. The final glorious spread shows Georgiana's granddaughter, Jacqueline Woodson, laughing at home with her own beloved daughter, Toshi Georgiana, whose picture is embedded in a quilt, connecting her with those who came before. A must for the classroom, this story will move many readers to explore their own family roots; link to the Booklist interview with Woodson , in which she talks about what she owes to those who came before her. Hazel RochmanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Classroom Implications: Woodson crafts a perfect text to introduce a study of family history in the classroom. This text inspires students to research their own family history. Tar Beach by Faith Ringold would make an excellent match with this text. This pairing opens the door to a parallel study on quilt making and community.

Skills and Strategies

• Descriptive Language
• Symbolism
• Point of view
• Characterization
• Timelines of text

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Coming on Home Soon by Jacqueline Woodson (Author) and E.B. White (Illustrator)

K-Gr. 3. As in their award-winning picture book The Other Side (2001), Woodson and Lewis tell a moving historical story of longing and separation. The setting here is the home front during World War II, and Ada Ruth's mama leaves to find work in the city ("They're hiring colored women in Chicago since all the men are off fighting in the war"). At home with Grandma, Ada Ruth holds on to memories of Mama's love and writes to her. Times are hard, and for a long time "no letter or money coming." Ada Ruth takes in a stray kitten, and even though Grandma says they can't keep it, Ada Ruth does, and its purring softness is big and warm on her lap. The race, class, and gender struggle is part of the larger drama ("A colored woman working on the railroad!"), but for Ada Ruth, it's the waiting, quietly expressed in her simple, poetic first-person narrative. Lewis' beautiful watercolors establish the setting, not the South this time, but a spacious rural landscape with snow and icy storms, and inside, the loving portrayals of the women in warm, neat rooms with an empty chair. Period and place are wonderfully specific; the yearning is timeless. Hazel Rochman Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Classroom Implications: This book stands out for its pairing of historical fiction with award-winning illustrations. Woodson writes a story within a story; upon reading, the reader notices the internal story of the characters that occurs simultaneously with the external story on the pages. For this reason, this would be an excellent text to use when teaching personal narrative or short story.

Click here to access a Booklist Interview with J. Woodson on her book Coming on Home Soon, African American women in her family, and her writing process.

Skills and Strategies

• Summarizing
• Setting
• Dialogue

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Rosa by Nikki Giovanni and Bryan Collier

Grade 3-5–Rosa Parks's personal story moves quickly into a summary of the Civil Rights movement in this striking picture book. Parks is introduced in idealized terms. She cares for her ill mother and is married to one of the best barbers in the county. Sewing in an alterations department, Rosa Parks was the best seamstress. Her needle and thread flew through her hands like the gold spinning from Rumpelstiltskin's loom. Soon the story moves to her famous refusal to give up her seat on the bus, but readers lose sight of her as she waits to be arrested. Giovanni turns to explaining the response of the Women's Political Caucus, which led to the bus boycott in Montgomery. A few events of the movement are interjected–the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the aftermath and reactions to the murder of Emmett Till, the role of Martin Luther King, Jr., as spokesperson. Collier's watercolor and collage scenes are deeply hued and luminous, incorporating abstract and surreal elements along with the realistic figures. Set on colored pages, these illustrations include an effective double foldout page with the crowd of successful walkers facing a courthouse representing the 1956 Supreme Court verdict against segregation on the buses. Many readers will wonder how it all went for Parks after her arrest, and there are no added notes. Purposeful in its telling, this is a handsome and thought-provoking introduction to these watershed acts of civil disobedience.–Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Classroom Implications: "...She was tired. Not tired from work, but tired of putting white people first..." This line captures the essence of this book; a book that not only captures Rosa's political role, but illustrates her life as a woman. Giovanni and Collier are a must for an in-depth study of African American history and the civil rights movement. Not just a book for February, Rosa is a must for library shelves throughout the grades.

Skills and Strategies

• Nonfiction reading--biography
• Determining Importance
• Predicting
• Questioning
  
• Note-taking
  

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Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford (Author), Kadir Nelson (Illustrator)

Grades 2-5 (and beyond) Weatherford's handsome picture book about Harriet Tubman focuses mostly on Tubman's religious inspiration, with echoes of spirituals ringing throughout the spare poetry about her struggle ("Lord, don't let nobody turn me 'round"). God cradles Tubman and talks with her; his words (printed in block capitals) both inspire her and tell her what to do ("SHED YOUR SHOES; WADE IN THE WATER TO TRICK THE DOGS"). Nelson's stirring, beautiful artwork makes clear the terror and exhaustion Tubman felt during her own escape and also during her brave rescue of others. There's no romanticism: the pictures are dark, dramatic, and deeply colored--whether showing the desperate young fugitive "crouched for days in a potato hole" or the tough middle-aged leader frowning at the band of runaways she's trying to help. The full-page portrait of a contemplative Tubman turning to God to help her guide her people is especially striking. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Classroom Implications: A critical addition to any library, this book uses poetry and call and response format to paint an accurate portrayal of Tubman's journey. The illustrations and language team together to create a teaching tool that spans audiences.

Skills and Strategies

• Nonfiction reading--historical and social action
  
• Poetry
• Call and Response
• Descriptive language
• Character study

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