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Understanding the past
Black history books offer powerful accounts of hope and change REVIEWS BY DEBORAH HOPKINSON February is Black History Month, a wonderful opportunity to share books which illuminate people and events once neglected by historians. New children's books that can help mark the occasion include historical fiction set during the time of slavery, a book on poet Langston Hughes, stories from the civil rights movement and an examination of race by Newbery Honor Award winner Julius Lester. Here's a sampling of new titles. The road north
By Bettye Stroud Candlewick, $15.99 32 pages, ISBN 0763624233 Overcoming barriers
Through Connie's eyes, we see the role that young people played in breaking down these barriers, beginning when four college students sat at Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro and asked to be served. Thanks to this and similar student-led sit-ins, on July 25, 1960, blacks were finally allowed to eat at the lunch counter. With its evocative art, child's-eye perspective and an informative author's note that includes a photo of the sit-in, Freedom on the Menu is an outstanding example of the kind of historical fiction that helps children better understand the past.
As a symbol of promise of better, sweeter times, the red roses also grace the last page of the book, when the girls return home safely, infused with hope and the possibility of change.
By Carole Boston Weatherford Dial, $16.99 32 pages, ISBN 0803728603
By Angela Johnson Simon & Schuster, $16.95 32 pages, ISBN 0689832524 A poet's inspiration
As Langston strides through the streets of Harlem to meet friends and celebrate his success, the reader is pulled into his memories of visiting his father in Mexico in 1920. As he rides the train, the young man watches passing fields and rivers, and the rivers begin to inspire a poem, which he scribbles onto the back of an envelope. Inspired by the 1921 Hughes poem, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," Langston's Train Ride is a visual feast. Leonard Jenkins has created vibrant, dynamic paintings that make Robert Burleigh's imaginative tribute come alive. An afterword provides more information about the poet's life and the incident that inspired the story. While these and other new black history titles are aimed primarily at children, the best kids' books appeal to readers of all ages. So whether you have a child in your life or not, head into your local bookstore or the children's section of your community library during Black History Month to see what's on display. There's sure to be something there will enrich your own appreciation and understanding of our past.
By Robert Burleigh Orchard, $16.95 32 pages, ISBN 0439352398 Looking beyond skin-deep differences
"Take me, for example," Lester continues. "I was born on January 27, 1939, in St. Louis, Missouri. (I'm kind of old, huh?) HOW DOES YOUR STORY BEGIN?" Race, too, is part of the story, Lester writes. But, he cautions, stories that tell us that one race is better than others are simply not true. Addressing readers directly, the author asks them to close their eyes and feel their bones beneath their skin, and try the same experiment with a family member. It's a vividway of showing children that beneath our skins, we are the same. Lester, who taught for 32 years at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, shares in a note to this book, "I write because our lives are stories. If enough of those stories are told, then perhaps we will begin to see that our lives are the same story. The differences are mainly in the details." Perfectly complementing Lester's conversational, friendly tone are Karen Barbour's vibrant, colorful paintings, which depict children of many cultures and races. There's also a lively use of typeface and design. Sharing Let's Talk about Race with young children is a great way to launch your family's exploration of Black History Month. "I'll take off my skin," Lester challenges his readers at the end. "Will you take off yours?"
By Julius Lester HarperCollins, $15.99 32 pages, ISBN 0060285966 Deborah Hopkinson's newest book is Billy and the Rebel, a story for young readers inspired by a true incident at the Battle of Gettysburg.
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The Patchwork Path: A Quilt Map to Freedom is a picture book written by Bettye Stroud and illustrated by Erin Susanne Bennett. The story follows a young slave girl named Hannah, who recalls the special quilt her mama once made for her, which includes secret meanings imbedded in the quilt patterns. "The monkey wrench turns the wagon wheel toward Canada on a bear paw's trail to the crossroads," Hannah remembers. Taking the quilt with them, Hannah and her father set out on a long journey on the Underground Railroad, keeping out of sight and stopping along the way at a church and a Quaker family's safe house. While historians disagree as to the actual role quilts may have played in the Underground Railroad, oral histories continue to surface. In an author's note, Stroud cites as her inspiration a 1999 book, Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad.
History also plays a role in Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins, Carole Boston Weatherford's poignant picture book on the Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins that began on February 1, 1960. Graced by the art of award-winning illustrator Jerome Lagarrique, the story is told from the point of view of a fictitious young girl who sees these events through the actions of her older brother and sister. More than anything, Connie wants to sit at the lunch counter, swivel on the stool and dig into a luscious banana split. But she learns from her mother the boundaries set up in her North Carolina world: rules that proclaim whites only at water fountains, swimming pools, movie theaters, bathrooms and restaurants.
In a similar way, the important role of protest marches in America's civil rights movement is explored in
A Sweet Smell of Roses. Written by Angela Johnson, a 2003 MacArthur Fellow, this is a lyrical, simple story of two girls who slip out of the house one morning to march with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Eric Velasquez's charcoal illustrations provide a period feel for the story and are set off by the red bow on the teddy bear the younger girl carries with her on the march.
Set in the 1920s, before the civil rights movement had even begun,
Langston's Train Ride imagines the poet Langston Hughes as a young man in Harlem, soon after his first book of poems was published.
"I am a story," begins Julius Lester's creative new picture book,
Let's Talk About Race, a child-friendly, engaging book perfectly suited to get kids thinking, and talking, about this important subject. Lester, a master storyteller and award-winning novelist, focuses on the sharing of personal stories to explore similarities and differences. And he leaps right in and begins with himself.