It Spoke Volumes For Her

One of many things history teaches us is the power of a single individual to make a significant impact.  This effect can ripple through a community, a state, a region, a country or the entire world.  It can be damaging or beneficial.  It can be temporary or lasting.  

Some names are more well-known than others; people like Elvis Presley, Pura Belpre, Stan Lee, John Lewis,  Zora Neale Hurston or Greta Thunberg.  Even if we think we know all we need to know about these individuals and their accomplishments, through the efforts of authors and illustrators collaborating on biographical picture books, we learn more.  The value of the work of these authors and illustrators cannot be stressed enough, especially when they introduce people who are unfamiliar to us.

For whatever reason these individuals are lesser known (to me), they did contribute to the betterment of life for residents on this planet.  How much did we know about Todd Bol, Ben Shahn, Teresa Carreno, Mary Walker, Helen Martini or Jadav Payeng before we read outstanding picture book biographies about them?  Their achievements are inspirational, far-reaching and enduring.  Love Is Loud: How Diane Nash Led the Civil Rights Movement (A Paula Wiseman Book, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers, January 10, 2023) written by Sandra Neil Wallace with illustrations by Bryan Collier is a book vital to any discourse on the history of the Civil Rights Movement.  Although, Diane Nash was not given the same platform as her male counterparts at the same time, she was and is a woman powered by and empowered by love.

You arrive in the spring of 1938 on the South Side, when

Chicago's leaves unfurl, emerald green like your baby girl eyes.

CELEBRATION, JUBILATION. Your parents baptize beautiful, honey-brown you, Diane Judith Nash.

For the first four years of her life, she lives in a home her parents fill with love until World War II comes.  With her father in the army and her mother working all day, Grandmother Bolton comes from Tennessee to embrace this child in her special kind of affection.  When she attends high school, love sustains her as classmates from a variety of ethnic backgrounds sit around Diane.  It is not until she goes to Tennessee to stay with Grandmother Bolton to attend college that segregation is blatantly on display.

Signs in Nashville say WHITES ONLY and COLORED ONLY.  It is not right to not share a drinking fountain or a school or a lunch counter.  Diane Judith Nash, raised in love, knows something must be done but she refers to not get arrested. She and other students learn and practice peaceful persistence in church before classes.  

They calmly sit at lunch counters and their numbers grow through the winter months of February and March.  In April, Diane is ignited by an act of violence; she silently leads six thousand souls in a march to meet Mayor Ben West to desegregate the lunch counters in Nashville. Victory is theirs. The next focus for Diane is the Freedom Rides.  She is twenty-three years old.  

Pregnant with her first child, Diane Judith Nash faces time in a Mississippi jail for organizing student protests.  She does not post bail, but goes to jail for the sake of freedom and explains her actions in a letter to the world.  Her two year sentence lasts ten days, dismissed by the judge. Love wins.

Diane is not done.  She works tirelessly to make the Voting Rights Act a reality.  Wherever she can, whenever she can she believes in justice and peace forged from love.  She spreads her truth for fifty years.  On July 7, 2022 this remarkable woman is the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom given to her by President Joe Biden.  She is eighty-four years young.

When you read what author Sandra Neil Wallace has written in this title, page turn by page turn a cadence grows.  She includes specific facts and quotations in her narrative to build and define the distinguished and formidable Diane Judith Nash. Within each section at least two words are capitalized and bolded.

These particular words are like roots or foundations from which the other thoughts grow and form. There is a poetic, almost musical, quality to them through rhyme, repetition, and alliteration.  Toward the end of the book, three 

Love is . . .

statements are repeated to create a powerful and exhilarating meter.  Here is a passage.

Seeing twenty-one-year-old you sit down with your pearls and your books shakes

the cooks and the waitress.  She breaks plate after plate as you wait to be served.

Inside, you shake too.  HANDS SWEATING, NEVER FORGETTING the danger,

the fear of being arrested for ordering a sandwich.

Your family is also afraid.  Of what can happen to you over lunch.  They worry

you've gotten in with the wrong bunch.

The open and matching dust jacket and book case first reveal a vibrant persona on the right side, the front.  Diane Judith Nash is looking straight ahead, focused on her goal.  The colors radiating from her are warm tones, reds, oranges, and yellows.  These are reflective of her beliefs that love is the way to win.  Love Is is varnished as is Diane Judith Nash.  The ray from her mouth is a glazed white with a bright red varnish on Loud.

To the left of the spine, on the back, are three visuals taken from the interior of the book.  They are shown to us in three different rays divided by a wide yellow border.  They show a progression of Diane's life, birth, her lunch counter sit-in, and her speech to secure voting rights.  In each of these Diane presents calmness with intention.

A rich orange red covers the opening and closing endpapers.  Artist Bryan Collier continues his use of rays like a megaphone on the title, verso and dedication pages adding a bold sky blue hue to the red, yellow and white.  His images rendered

in watercolor and collage

span two and single pages.  They are historically accurate in their depiction of clothing, interior design, buildings, fair grounds, and signage in Chicago and the southern states.

Readers cannot fail to notice the outstanding portraits of Diane Judith Nash in every setting.  Underlying her facial features, regardless of her current mood, is love.  We see it in her eyes and in her stance.  It is her North Star.

One of my many favorite illustrations is a double-page picture.  On the left, Diane appears straight and tall at a lunch counter sit-in.  She is wearing a yellow V-neck sweater rimmed in cream with a green blouse.  A strand of pearls rests around her neck.  She is looking to the right.  There we see a scene which might have been at that moment or one of other moments during the sit-ins.  A waitress holding coffee pots is flinging plates.  Some of the customers are displaying anger.  The participants are calm and well-dressed.

Through the stirring, informative words of Sandra Neil Wallace and the equally informative and expressive artwork of Bryan Collier, Love Is Loud: How Diane Nash Led the Civil Rights Movement is a superior nonfiction picture book.  At the close of the book is an author's note and an illustrator's note.  There is an extensive time line, several sources to learn about Diane Nash from video interviews and books for young readers.  There is a page of quote sources and a selected bibliography.  This is an essential title for all your collections.  

To discover more about Sandra Neil Wallace and Bryan Collier and their other work, please visit their websites by following the link attached to their names.  Sandra Neil Wallace has accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  Bryan Collier has accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  At both the publisher's website and the website of Sandra Neil Wallace, you can view the book trailer.  At Sandra Neil Wallace's site is a link to a six-page curriculum guide.  At the publisher's website, you can view interior images including the open dust jacket.

2018 Sibert Medal

On February 12, 2018 the American Library Association Youth Media Awards aired live from approximately 10:00 am to 11:00 am EST.  It doesn't get any better than watching this event with a friend and colleague and two classes of fifth grade students.  There were congratulatory yells, clapping, laughing, jumping up and down and verbal comments shared among those watching in that classroom.

When the 2018 Sibert Medal title was announced, one voice, mine, was a bit louder than the others.  Twice Twelve Days In May: Freedom Ride 1961 (Calkins Creek, an imprint of Highlights, October 24, 2017) written by Larry Dane Brimner was renewed from our public library.  I had it on the top of the stack next to my computer.  For some reason, I knew this book was special.  I was not ready to return it to the library.  Now I know why.  I read it cover to cover in a single sitting the next day.

LANDMARK 
EVENTS BEFORE 
THE TWELVE DAYS
IN MAY
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy, a light-complexioned black man, deliberately sat in the white-only car of the East Louisiana Railroad.  He identified himself as Negro and was arrested for violating Louisiana's Separate Car Act, passed in 1890.

In describing this case, Morgan v Commonwealth of Virginia (1946), Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Boynton v. Virginia (1960) and The Sit-Ins, we understand the historical significance of the decisions and civil rights actions leading to the Freedom Ride 1961.  From Tuesday, May 4, 1961 to Monday, May 15, 1961 we are privy to the scenes, the people and the events each day.  On May 4, 1961 two buses wait to leave Washington, D. C.; a Greyhound bus and a Continental Trailways bus will carry passengers initially numbering thirteen from state to state arriving in New Orleans by May 17, 1961.  This is to highlight the seventh anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

We are given the names, ages, race and occupations of the original thirteen riders.  These men and women ages sixty-one to eighteen volunteered for this ride; committed to non-violence regardless of how they were treated.  They rode to test the laws of this nation; the right to ride where they chose, the right to use the restroom of their choice and the right to eat where they wished.

On May 8, 1961 Joe Perkins a twenty-seven-year-old black man, a student at the University of Michigan, sat in a whites-only chair for a shoe shine.  He was arrested for trespassing.  His bail was fifty dollars.  The judge, Howard B. Arbuckle, dismissed all charges.  He followed the law not Jim Crow.

On May 9, 1961, John Lewis and Al Bigelow were beaten in Rock Hill, South Carolina.  The next day John Lewis left the Freedom Ride for a job interview promising to rejoin the group on May 15, 1961.  Tensions escalated in Winnsboro, South Carolina.  There were more arrests and a nighttime rescue.  On May 12, 1961 another member left and three more joined the group.  Now they were headed to Atlanta, Georgia.

The leader of the group James Farmer went home from Atlanta to Washington, D. C. suddenly on May 13, 1961 due to the death of his father.  As first the Greyhound bus entered the city of Anniston, Alabama, the Ku Klux Klan was highly charged with deadly intentions.  The local police did not arrest the Klansmen.  Two tires on the bus are slashed.  What followed as the bus traveled from Anniston toward Birmingham was horrific.  Equally atrocious were the incidents happening on the Continental Trailways bus.  Klansmen were passengers.  Klansmen awaited the arrival in Birmingham. 

The Freedom Riders wanted to continue but there were no buses to take them to New Orleans.  Even a decision to fly was filled with problems.  Intervention from the administration in Washington, D. C. helped the plane to take off and land in New Orleans.  Twelve days of incredible courage, determination in the face of grave bodily harm and the will to do so without violence on their part kept these Freedom Riders going toward their goal. 

We continue reading about the civil rights movement after the Freedom Ride 1961 and Birmingham.  Each of the thirteen riders is named again.  We learn how their lives continue.  They will be remembered.


Whether you read this once or multiple times, each time you are completely captivated by the bravery of these men and women.  Larry Dane Brimner writes masterfully beginning with background information and creating a feeling of great unease which grows day by day.  As the buses pass from state to state Larry Dane Brimner includes details which personally invest us in this journey. 

We continually refer to the page introducing us to the members of the Freedom Ride 1961.  Each time something happens to one of them our attachment grows.  Larry Dane Brimner is so skillful it's as if we are watching this on film.  In addition to the narrative, realistic photographs are included with every page turn.  They are all captioned; some of them are lengthier than others.  Here is one of the captions.  It is followed by a narrative passage.

Although Petersburg, Virginia, desegregated its bus terminals in 1960, this was the exception rather than the rule in the South.  When Freedom Ride 1961 ended in Birmingham, Alabama, on May 15, new waves of riders picked up the cause.  Here, unidentified Freedom Riders successfully integrate the bus terminal in Montgomery, Alabama, on May 28, 1961.

A few nearby residents offer to help the victims.  A twelve-year-old local white girl, Janie Miller, hauls five-gallon buckets of water to the riders and other passengers.  Most of the local residents, however, either look on in silence or urge the Klansmen to continue the assault, until ambulances arrive to carry the injured to the hospital.  At first, ambulance drivers refuse to carry any of the injured black riders.  Only when the white Freedom Riders begin to crawl out of the ambulances, unwilling to leave their black friends behind, do the drivers relent and agree to carry all the victims.


You will be stunned reading Twelve Days In May: Freedom Ride 1961 written by Larry Dane Brimner.  Once you read this you'll want everyone to read this title.  It is a very important book.  It is through reading history we have the ability to be better than we are.  At the conclusion of the book is a bibliography of sources consulted by the author, video, websites, and for younger readers.  There are places to visit and acknowledgments.  Source notes, an index and picture credits complete the title.

To learn more about Larry Dane Brimner and his other work, please follow the link to his website attached to his name.  I believe you will enjoy reading his other award winning books.  I was ten years old during these twelve days in May.  I thank Larry Dane Brimner for this book.


Please visit Kid Lit Frenzy hosted by Alyson Beecher to read about the titles selected this week by other participants in the 2018 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge.

His Legacy Lives

It was April 4, 1968.  As a sixteen-year-old junior in high school my thoughts were turning to the end of the school year and a summer job at the local florist shop at the other end of the street.  In another state a Noble Peace Prize winner was thinking of music and words when standing on the balcony of a motel in Memphis, Tennessee.  It was early evening.  An hour later, this man, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was gone, killed by an assassin's bullet.  My memory of the news in our home is one of stunned silence.

Today, fifty years later, I watched the ABC News broadcast of the tragic events of that evening.  This video broadcast is followed by the ABC News coverage of the  Memphis March on April 8, 1968 honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  (You cannot experience these historical broadcasts without being emotionally moved.)  Martin Rising: Requiem For A King (Scholastic Press, January 2, 2018) written by Andrea Davis Pinkney with illustrations by Brian Pinkney is as extraordinary as the man being honored within these pages.  Time stands still from the moment you begin reading.

HENNY PENNY PRELUDE
Here she is!
Hind feathers
hightailing

Her birdie eyes,
filled with foresight,
see far down the road.

Peck-peck prophecy.

This prelude is the first of forty docu-poems, each dated, centered on the three months prior to the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  In the second poem dated with his birth, January 15, 1929, we read of a child growing into a man with purpose and a dream.  It follows in a third poem with words celebrating what would be his last birthday; the baking of the cake, the thirty-nine candles on that cake, a wish made, and a family singing and dancing to the music sounding forth from the piano with Coretta's playing.  Months pass taking readers to the strike of the sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee on February 11, 1968.  A group led by Reverend James Lawson meets two weeks later in support of the workers.

March weather roars and strikers march through the city of Memphis.  Unlike the weather their efforts appear stalled.  A call is made from one friend to another.  Dr. King is to arrive in Memphis.  His speech to those gathered on March 18, 1868 buoys their spirits as does his promise of a return in four days.  March weather intervenes until Dr. King comes back and they walk again on March 28, 1968.  It does not go well.  It does not end peacefully.  Against the advice of friends, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. knows he needs to return.  He knows he is needed in Memphis, Tennessee.

Arriving at the Lorraine Motel on April 3, 1968, Dr. King is bone-tired.  His fever-torn body has him asking a friend to speak in his place that evening at the Mason Temple.  Later that same friend begs him to come.  The people want him.  Peace.  Nonviolence.

"I may not get there with you.

But I want you to know tonight,
that we
as a people
will get to the promised land!"

It is April 4, 1968.  After the triumph of his speech last night, Dr. King sleeps until noon.  His friend, Ralph (Pastor Ralph D. Abernathy) is ready to discuss their next rally and the march scheduled for April 8, 1968 for the sanitation workers.  There is a surprise visit and an afternoon of fun.  In the evening friends at the Lorraine Motel in Room 306 ready themselves for a dinner and for a night of inspiration.  And then . . .

Henny Penny is correct; the sky does fall.  Hearts are broken and rage rains on Memphis.  And what of James Earl Ray?  There are so many questions with no answers.  On April 8, 1968 a wife stands tall with children near her; children now with no father.  Days pass moving toward another holiday full of promise, a promise seen in the joy of children.  For the rest of years as far as we can now see the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. will still be a time for making wishes, dreaming dreams and going forth in love.


Having finished reading these forty poems for the second time, moments ago, a feeling of being in the presence of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his family, his friends and those for whom he represented is unshakable.  Andrea Davis Pinkney gives us the truths of these events so beautifully it takes your breath away.  The weaving of the folktale character Henny Penny into the narrative is done flawlessly and adds a new dimension to the understanding of what transpired and what continues today.  It is a master stroke of poetic writing.

At the beginning of the book a table of contents lists the titles of each poem.  You can see Andrea Davis Pinkney has divided them into three sections; Daylight, Darkness and Dawn.  This is done with intention.  It serves to bind the reader personally to each poem.  With respect here is a portion of the poem

SHATTERED
March 28, 1968

. . .

Eleven o'clock,
on the nose
of what they hope
will be
freedom's punctuality.

Garbagemen go all out.

All showing up,
so proud.

Boys and girls---twenty-two thousand of them!---

Playing hooky, skipping school,
so they, too,
can demonstrate.

Martin leads them all
through Memphis streets
toward city hall.

Arm in arm, 
he walks,
with his friend,
his ace,
his close-close confidant,
Reverend Ralph Abernathy.

Interlocked elbows, 
the city's many ministers
march with Martin, too.

We shall overcome!   . . .


The swirl of glowing golden hues blended with new sky blue calls to readers from the opened dust jacket.  The marchers holding signs beneath Dr. King cross the spine stretching until they fade to the left in the same swirl of glowing golden hues blended with new sky blue.  On the back we read:

Can a Dream ever die?

A burst of sun replies:

His life well lived for peace and good.

Martin's spirit---still alive!

And with love,

we all shall rise.

Removing the jacket reveals a splendid book case with a white canvas.  The title text with Andrea Davis Pinkney's and Brian Pinkney's names is golden yellow.  The subtitle is placed on the left in blue.  Beneath those words are three arches on each side, representing the three portions of this narrative.  Along the bottom only about an inch high are multitudes of marchers.

The blue from the dust jacket covers the opening and closing endpapers.  A page turn at the front shows a sun rising in a wash of yellows, blues and a bit of purple.  On the title pages the image from the book case is replicated.

Rendered in watercolor, gouache, and India ink on watercolor paper, the paintings of Brian Pinkney are in a word, exquisite.  Each page turn will have you gasping at his representations.  He shines a bright light on the text, shifting with the emotions, moods and the weather.  His lines and color choices reflect those very things.

One of my many favorite paintings is for the continuation of the poem, KINGS IN MEMPHIS March 18, 1968.  A deep, deep golden (almost pale orange) washes on the left providing a place for the text.  On the right is a loose arched window, as one would see in a church.  In a circle near the top (like a rose window) Dr. King is speaking.  Radiating from that and beneath it are sections filled with gathered people, intently listening.  In the far right, lower corner, more people are entering the church.  The warmth of this moment is captured in the colors used, oranges and yellows with hints of blue and green.


Reading Martin Rising: Requiem For A King written by Andrea David Pinkney with illustrations by Brian Pinkney silently to yourself is an experience to be remembered.  To read it aloud is powerful.  I high recommend this book for your professional and personal collections.  At the close of the book are Author's Reflections and Artist's Reflections and four pages dedicated to Now Is The Time with original photographs.  The final four sentences read:

When we vote, we rise.  When we march, we rise.  When we speak out, seek peace, teach the truth, we all rise to a better tomorrow.  And the time is now!

A time line and sources (books and web sources) with acknowledgments conclude this title.

To learn more about Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney, please follow the links attached to their names to access their websites.  At the publisher's website you can view several interior poems and images.  Scholastic's Ambassador of School Libraries, John Schumacher, hosts the cover reveal and an interview with Andrea and Brian on his blog, Watch. Connect. Read.  Andrea Davis Pinkney stops to chat with author, Deborah Kalb, in a Q & A.  Andrea Davis Pinkney talks with Roger Sutton about this title in a video at The Horn Book.  Author, reviewer and blogger Julie Danielson talks about this book at Kirkus and gives us views of artwork on her blog, Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.  Please visit a page on Scholastic's blog, On Our Minds, to celebrate this title.