Product Description

In 1956, Pulitzer Prize winner Gwendolyn Brooks created a collection of poems that celebrated the joy, beauty, imagination, and freedom of childhood. She reminded us that whether we live in the Bronzeville section of Chicago or any other neighborhood, childhood is universal in its richness of emotions and experiences. And now a brand-new generation of readers will savor Ms. Brooks's poems in this stunning reillustrated edition that features vibrant paintings by Caldecott Honor artist Faith Ringgold.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1051610 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-14
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .60" h x 9.22" w x 11.34" l, 1.07 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 48 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Brooks's deceptively simple poems for children combined with Ringgold's vibrant illustrations help to rejuvenate this collection first published in 1956. Inspired by Brooks's Chicago neighborhood, the events, feelings and thoughts of the children in the verse take on a timeless quality. The language and tone appear to be casual, but each poem is tightly constructed, rhythmic and distinctive. Whether the poem takes a child as its subject or unfolds in a child's voice, the images are universal. A new puppy has a "little wiggly warmness" and will not "mock the tears you have to hide." The snow is "white as milk or shirts./ So beautiful it hurts." Brooks's language remains economical yet astonishingly inventive. She describes how "Maurice importantly/ peacocks up and down./ Till bigly it occurs to him/ (It hits him like a slam)" that he won't be able to pack up his friends and take them along when he moves to another town. A few of the poems seem dated (kids call their mothers "Mother-dear," and when Paulette wants to run, her mother says "You're eight, and ready/ To be a lady") but on the whole, the collection will be as appealing to today's readers as it was to a child of the 1950s. Ringgold's bold illustrations, outlined with her signature thick black lines, are among some of her best and most narrative works since Tar Beach. She moves easily from cityscapes to cozy interior scenes around the family dinner table or singing at church. Ages 7-10. (Jan.)
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From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 4—The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet first published this collection of 34 brief poems in 1956. Each one presents a different child involved in a pastime that still figures in the lives of contemporary children. Mexie and Bridie are enjoying a tea party, small Narcissa is sitting still while her imagination transforms her into an ancient queen, and Michael hopes no one will notice that he holds his mother's hand during a thunderstorm. Some of the selections, such as "Robert," are reflective: "Do you ever look in the looking-glass/And see a stranger there?/A child you know and do not know,/Wearing what you wear?" Others, such as "Otto," offer a bit of social commentary:" It's Christmas Day. I did not get/The presents that I hoped for. Yet,/It is not nice to frown or fret./To frown or fret would not be fair./My Dad must never know I care/It's hard enough for him to bear." The original illustrations were black-and-white line drawings, done by Ronni Solbert, and despite the fact that the Bronzeville area of Chicago was also known as the Black Metropolis, featured white children. Ringgold's trademark, vibrantly colored, stylized art features children of color. This book is an excellent opportunity to introduce the work of an important author to a new generation. It should be considered a first purchase for most libraries.—Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ
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From Booklist
*Starred Review* This collection of 34 poems by Pulitzer Prize winner Brooks takes its title from a historically black neighborhood in Chicago, and the poems, each named for a child or children, come across as verbal snapshots of Bronzeville's young residents. When first published in 1956, the poems were paired with Ronni Solbert's occasional line illustrations, which often left the ethnicity of Brooks' subjects open to interpretation. Not so in this version, fully and exuberantly illustrated by the creator of the Caldecott Honor book Tar Beach (1991) and other titles. Ringgold envisions the poem's protagonists as members of an urban, African American community and renders them in the assertive colors and faux-naif style for which she is best known. Thickly outlined in black and unmoored from traditional rules of perspective, Ringgold's depictions share the childlike sensibility of Brooks' words, whether expressed in skipping-rope rhythms or in coinages that children will relish ("When I hear Marian Anderson sing, / I am a STUFFless kind of thing"). Splashed edge to edge in wild color and activity, the large-format pages will draw children to the work in a way the previous edition's unassuming appearance did not, ensuring a wider audience for poems that honor the rich experiences of children as individuals, by turns mischievous and joyful, pensive and sad. Jennifer Mattson
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