Speaking Truth

By studying history, the results can be illuminating, often heartbreaking, and more times than we wish, heinous.  This does not mean we get to set aside the facts that are heartbreaking and heinous.  For ourselves, we need to accept them and use them to be better, to do better, and stand up for better.  This is what history should and needs to teach us.  As educators, we owe our students the truth . . . all of it.

Enslaved people from the continent of Africa were brought to the American colonies in the early 1600s.  President Abraham Lincoln issued the official Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.  The 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States abolished slavery.  It was adopted on December 6, 1865 after being ratified by Georgia.  (We know the chains of slavery, all kinds of slavery, still exist today in other forms.  This is one of the reasons you might want to stay informed about the Abolition Amendment.)  In a memorable new title, An American Story (Little, Brown And Company, January 3, 2023) written by Kwame Alexander with art by Dare Coulter, readers are told the truth in powerful, poetic words and striking poignant images.

How do you tell a story

that starts in Africa

and ends in horror?

The narrative continues by telling us of people, men, women, and children, living in Africa.  We learn of their daily activities, a combination of work, play, and storytelling.  All the time we learn of these people in Africa, others are waiting, waiting, waiting to take them away in shackles to be sold in America.  Then, we find ourselves as readers, momentarily, in a contemporary classroom where students make a statement and ask a question. 

As this American story continues, we are told how these men who profited from the sale of human beings placed these stolen people below deck on their ships in spaces too small and too hot.  There were deaths because of these too small and too hot spaces on those ships.  And sometimes, when these people were taken on the decks of those ships, they jumped in shark-filled waters to be free.  There is now more commentary from the present-day classroom students.

We move to the plantations growing cotton and sugar and the too-long days of labor without pay.  We read of children forced into labor who watched the children of the plantation owners free to play, attend school and wear good clothing.  Learning to read and reading for enslaved people was strictly forbidden.  They toiled in the fields and in plantation homes doing numerous and varied tasks day after day without pay.  Yet again, a student hearing this story asks a question.

We read of the resilience, the unbelievable resilience, of these enslaved people.  They refused to lose their humanity.  They refused to forget stories, all stories.  Some escaped.  Some did not.  Some never saw their fathers, mothers, sons, or daughters again.  At this point, the teacher reading this story stops, unable to continue and apologizes to her students.  The children, her students, respond in words filled with the strength they have learned. In the concluding phrases, we are asked about telling and hearing and the final sentence is a potent response.

In that first question, author Kwame Alexander delivers a stunning opening.  Page turn by page turn, his words convey the intimately personal terrors and injustices experienced and endured by enslaved people from Africa. His use of the word waiting three times adds an eerie element of foreboding before the people are stolen.  By inserting the questions and comments from students in a present day classroom and the voice of their teacher throughout this story, the relevance, impact, and essential value of this telling is depicted with veracity.  His final words are unforgettable.  Here is a passage.

A story about mothers

fleeing in the wind

wading in the water

conducting freedom.

About fathers

fighting back

stealing away

chasing liberty.

As soon as you see the open dust jacket with the American flag spanning left to right, back to front, you pause.  You pause not because of the flag but because of the hands holding it.  These are the hands of an enslaved African.  These are hands that have seen hard labor.  The wash over the colors of the flag denotes time, a long time.

Beneath the jacket on the book case, interior images have been placed on either side of the spine.  On the back, left, under a cloud-dotted sky, a row of enslaved people bend; their backs making a row as they work planting seedlings in dirt and water.  The color of their clothing seems to have captured rays from a rising or setting sun.  On the front, right, is a boy picking cotton, a sack slung over his shoulder.  Other slaves work in the background and a horse waits patiently on the right.  The enslaved boy's eyes look right.  He is watching children his own age playing before going to school.  

The opening endpapers feature a star-studded sky at night.  A full moon shines amid a layered circle of clouds.  It is as if the clouds are holding the moon like cupped hands.  On the closing endpapers is a vast sky filled with glowing golden yellow and bright red-orange hues.  In the lower, left-hand corner rests a glowing globe.

The artwork for this book by Dare Coulter is explained at the back of the book like this.

The illustrations in this book are mixed media and were created with a combination of spray paint, acrylic paint, charcoal, graphite, ink, and digital painting on wood panel and watercolor paper, and also using Procreate and Adobe Photoshop.  The sculptures are both ceramic and polymer clay with added materials and were painted with acrylic paint and spray paint.

The illustrations begin on the double-page dedication page and continue on the title page with another two-page picture.  It shows a single home in an African setting surrounded by native flora and other homes glowing with lights at night.  Each piece of artwork, whether its a full-page visual or a double-page image pulses with certainty.

Forthright, emotional, and deeply moving are only a few ways to describe these illustrations.  When the text brings us into a contemporary classroom, Dare Coulter pictures the students and their teacher against a golden background with elements drawn in shaded shades of black.  Her final piece of artwork paired with Kwame Alexander's words will take your breath away.

One of the many moving pieces in this book is with a background of water fading to a paler blue toward the top.  Across the center of the illustrations are the hands and wrists of three people.  Their fists are clenched as a row of shackles hold them together.  Tears fill my eyes when I look, really look, at another picture.  This is a portrayal of the enslaved people jumping off the slave ship toward certain death . . . and freedom.  

This book, An American Story, written by Kwame Alexander with art by Dare Coulter, is an essential title to share often and widely. There is an author note and illustrator note at the end of the book.  I can't think of a single reason why this book should not be in your personal and professional collections, especially as an educator.

To learn more about Kwame Alexander and Dare Coulter and their other work, please access their websites by following the link attached to their names.  Kwame Alexander has accounts on Instagram and Twitter.  Dare Coulter has accounts on Instagram and Twitter.  Kwame Alexander is interviewed for the cover reveal by Shelley Diaz at School Library Journal.  Dare Coulter is interviewed with five questions at The Horn Book.  This is an excellent article about her research and artwork.  Here is a conversation at a Barnes & Noble site between these two creators.  There was an event at the Jacksonville Public Library last month about this book with Kwame Alexander and Dare Coulter.  The article talking about this has some interesting insights from them.  The video below is a television interview prior to the event.