A Splash of Red, The Life and Art of Horace Pippin - Jen Bryant

Illustrated by Melissa Sweet

2013, Alfred A. Knopf

HC $17.99 Carlisle's Bosler Library

32 pages

Goodreads rating: 4.26

My rating: 5

Endpapers: Front:  assorted illustrations of color palettes, etc.  Back:  a map of the US showing where you can see Pippin's art and three small paintings of Pippin's (nice to see his actual artwork)

Illustrations:  Funky, folky, wonderfully Melissa Sweet - covering the whole page with lots and lots to read and look at

1^st line: "On February 22, 1888, the town of West Chester Pennsylvania, celebrated a holiday.  That day, Daniel and Christine Pippin celebrated the birth of their son, Horace."

*TWO PAGES of afterwords, including information and all sorts of further reading including websites and films.

Goodreads:  As a child in the late 1800s, Horace Pippin loved to draw: He loved the feel of the charcoal as it slid across the floor. He loved looking at something in the room and making it come alive again in front of him. He drew pictures for his sisters, his classmates, his co-workers. Even during W.W.I, Horace filled his notebooks with drawings from the trenches . . . until he was shot. Upon his return home, Horace couldn't lift his right arm, and couldn't make any art. Slowly, with lots of practice, he regained use of his arm, until once again, he was able to paint--and paint, and paint! Soon, people—including the famous painter N. C. Wyeth—started noticing Horace's art, and before long, his paintings were displayed in galleries and museums across the country. Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet team up once again to share this inspiring story of a self-taught painter from humble beginnings who despite many obstacles, was ultimately able to do what he loved, and be recognized for who he was: an artist,

My reaction on Goodreads:  When I was in the Philadelphia Museum of Art a week or so ago I remember being quite taken with the art of Horace Pippin.  So when I saw this book - by a favorite author and illustrator - I was quite pleased.  My six-year old granddaughter said she really like the book.  When I asked her what she liked, she talked about how everyone asked Horace to draw for them.  I think she related to this, because she loves creating art for people.  We both loved the illustrations.  The words and pictures of this wonderful team (Bryant and Sweet) are truly special.  We read the book twice. 

Our Children Can Soar - Michelle Cook

A Celebration of Rosa, Barack, and the Pioneers of Change
Multi-Illustrators including:
...Bryan Collier (Thurgood Marshall)
...Leo & Diane Dillon (George Washington Carver)
...E. B. Lewis (endpiece)
...James Ransome (intro)
and more!
Purblished: 2009
Rating: 5
$16.99
Endpapers: Red

"Our ancestors fought
.....so George could invent.
George invented
.....so Jessse could sprint.
Jesse sprinted
....."

From George Wasington Carver, Jesse Owens, Hattie McDaniel, and Ella Fitzgerald to Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges, MLK Jr, through Thurgood Marshall and our most recent president, Barack Obama, this book is a celebration of Black Americans oin American history who paved the way .

Each two-page spread is devoted to one person and illustrated by a different illustrator. The text throughout is the simple text above. There are paragraph bios and paragraphs explanations for each illustration at the end of the book.

This is a beautiful book, perfect for teaching about Civil Rights and Black History.

Henry's Freedom Box - Ellen Levine

A True Story from the Underground Railroad
Illustrator: Kadir Nelson
Published: 2007
Read 1/31/09 B&N
Rating: 5
2008 Caldecott Honor Book
Endpapers: Medium brown

What a story! What detailed, heart-tugging illustrations! It begins, "Henry Brown wasn't sure how old he was. Henry was a slave. And slaves weren't allowed to know their birthdays. That sure says a lot. The illustration is of a young, barefoot boy sitting on a barrell and just staring....

Henry is sold away from his family. He works in a tobacco factory for years, meets a young woman named Nancy, they are given permission to wed. They have three kids. But one day, Nancy and the kids are sold and he loses them forever. He decides to try to become a free man. With the help of a white doctor who thought slavery was wrong, he mailed himself in a crate to Philadelphia - and freedom. It worked.

I think as much as we hear about families being torn apart, about the indignity that black slaves went through, that a story like this for kids that tells (and shows) the truth is still very much needed to make a hard-to-understand concept more real.

And oh, the illustrations. Kadir Nelson's illustrations for All God's Critters were really different than those he did for this, but just as amazing and wonderful. I have a new hero! Crosshatched pencil lines are covered with layers of watercolor and oil paints. The back flap says he also illustrated Ellington Was Not a Street (Ntozake Shange) and Just the Two of Us (Will Smith). You'll see both of those reviewed here soon, what do you want to bet?

The Patchwork Path: A Quilt Map to Freedom - Bettye Stroud

Illustrator: Erin Susanne Bennett
Published: 2005
Rating: 5
Read: 1/31/09 B&N
Paperback version, no endpapers

I am becoming more and more impressed with the quality of story and illustration that Candlewick Press publishes.

Based on a quilt code that has been verified (and written about in Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad, published by Jacqueline Tobin and Dr. Raymond Dobard, 1999), Bettye Stroud has written a story about Hannah and her father's arduous journey as runaway slaves from a Georgia plantation into Canada. There are lots of details - about quilt patterns, about the Undergraound Railroad, about Quakers and some of the history of help along the way. However, it's not too lengthy - it's a fascinating account and overview, but short enough to keep even a younger child's interest. It would be a great read aloud to go along with a slavery, Black History, (or even Harriet Tubman) unit - and the quilt patterns which are integrated into the story could be integrated beautifully into the classroom in various ways - math and art and illustration and even hands-on with fabric, needle, and thread!

I Want to Be Free - Joseph Slate

Illustrator: E. B. Lewis
For: Kids - School age
Published: 2009
Rating: 4.5
Read: 1/31/09 B&N
Endpapers: Med. Sage Blue

In rhyming couplets we accompany a slave - who is able to remove the chain from his leg, but not the clamp from his ankle - to his freedom. Along the way he encounters a motherless child who is being left behind for slave-hunters to find, so he takes it upon himself to take the young boy with him. Then he forages for two...to the Land of the Free. There, the child touches the ring on his ankle and it falls away. This is when it gets weirdly religious - "How, dear child, did you set me free?/ I'm from the Lord. You cared for me."

Hmmm. Then I turned the page and got my explanation for this curious ending: AUTHOR'S NOTE: "This poem is a retelling of a story in the sacred literature of Buddha about his disciple, the Elephant Ananda, as related by Rudyard Kipling in his novel, Kim. I moved its setting and language to anther time, as I believe its them to be universal." Okay, that explains that. Maybe its time for me to investigat Buddha a little, 'cause I have no idea about this Elephant Ananda......intriguing.....

I just read The Negro Speaks of Rivers, also illustrated by E. B. Lewis. Wow. His dark, full page illustrations are emotional and inspiring.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers - Langston Hughes

Illustrator: E. B. Lewis
For: Absolutely everyone!
Published: Jan. 2009
Rating 5
Read: Jan, 2009 (Library book)
Endpapers: Bright mustard
"Dedicated to the heroes of the civil rights movement - E.B.L."

My first 2009 copyrighted picture book - and it's a winner. Langston Hughes wrote this poem in 1920, when he was 18, and the watercolor illustrations that E. B. Lewis has created make me want to cry, they're so beautiful. One line per double-page spread - and each one is a breath-taking painting on its own.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I've known rivers:
I've know rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of
.....human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked up the Nile and raised pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans,
.....and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

---Langston Hughes

2. Hurricane Song - Paul Volponi

A Novel of New Orleans
For: Middle School/YA (Language in a few places)
Published: June, 2008
136 pgs.
Rating: 4
Finished: Jan. 3, 2009

This is, I think, a very important book. Miles has just gone to live with his dad in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina strikes. The highways are clogged, the car breaks down, and they are forced to go to the Superdome to take shelter. What happened inside the Superdome was a nightmare - and reading this story takes you there. The filth, the smells, the lack of food, water, toilet facililties, the death and sickness, the heat, the violence - all from a 14-year-old's point of view.

Miles' father is a jazz musician, his trumpet is his life. Miles' life is all about football. They've never been close. But this book takes us through the changing of their relationship as well as watching what happened instide the Superdome during the raging of Katrina. Wow.