He also reveals a slice of history neither the boy nor many of us readers realized. “Look at these hands, Joseph. Did you know these hands were not allowed to mix the bread dough in the Wonder Bread factory?”

The tender sepia-toned oil-wash artwork by the renowned Floyd Cooper sheds a warm glow on the earth-toned images of the boy and his grandfather. The illustrations contribute to the reassuring tone and message of this simple, yet powerful picture book.

Grandpa tells Joseph how “these hands joined with other hands. And we wrote our petitions, and we carried our signs, and we raised our voices together. Now any hands can touch the bread dough, no matter their color. Yes, they can.”

The author’s note explains how, in the ’50s and early ’60s, African-American workers at the Wonder Bread, Awrey, and Tastee bakery factories were allowed to sweep and load trucks, but were not permitted to work as bread dough mixers. The author relates how she learned the history from Joe Barnett, a leader of the bakery labor union.

Don’t miss this fine inter-generational story, as it provides so many wonderful opportunities to discuss the role of families and the need to work together to battle injustice in its many forms.

And see …

That motherless child would become the famous writer and activist Frederick Douglass, who wrote in his groundbreaking autobiography, “I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone. Very little communication ever took place between us. Death soon ended what little we could have while she lived, and with it her hardships and suffering. She died when I was about seven years old, on one of my master’s farms, near Lee’s Mill. I was not allowed to be present during her illness, at her death, or burial.”

In her moving debut, Love Twelve Miles Long, Glenda Armand takes us back to 1820s Talbot County, Maryland, to imagine how precious those few visits could have been for the two. Wrapped in her shawl, Mama arrives late at night, bringing Frederick her full heart and a slice of ginger cake. Mr. Bootman strews soft candlelight in his lush watercolor painting of the reunited mother and son sharing smiles no one can buy or sell.

Of course, the boy longs to spend more time with his mother, but she tells him it’s too far for him to walk. How, then, does she do it?

“The way I walk makes the journey shorter,” she says.

“Tell me how you walk, Mama. Tell me how you make it shorter.”

What follows is a beautiful evocation of the mother’s loving ritual, as she makes each mile special. The first is for forgetting: “I forget how tired I am. I forget that my back hurts and my hands and feet ache. I forget that I’ve worked all day and have to be in the fields again at sunup. And when the forgetting is done, I start remembering. That’s what the second mile is for.”

Other miles are spent observing the stars, praying, singing, remembering happy times, giving thanks, hoping, loving, and dreaming of a good life: “We’ll have our own land, and we’ll work for ourselves. There will be no slaves or masters. . . . You are going to do big and important things one day. But right now it’s time for you to go to bed.”

In a story brimming with hope and love, the real-life horrors of slavery lie elsewhere, where an older audience can grapple with them. The author’s note gives additional information about Frederick Douglass, who changed his surname in order to obscure his identity from the master he escaped. Douglass wrote that his mother, Harriet Bailey, taught him a powerful lesson: that he was not “only a child but somebody’s child.” How remarkable that she accomplished this under such despicable constraints.

But let us leave the mother with her miles to go before she sleeps. We can all use a comforting story of love, even—or especially—if it is ripped from a brutal past.

Reprinted with permission from New York Journal of Books

Related articles

Christopher Paul Curtis Recommends Books for Black History Month

Children’s Books: Bookshelf: Black History (nytimes.com)

This month seems like the perfect time to revisit Barbara McClintock‘s lovely, wintry picture book based on a little-known 1868 Dickens story. Molly and the Magic Wishbone, winner of a 2001 Parents Choice Award, is one of those endearing books that children, especially cat-lovers, cherish — if they have the chance to hear or read it. (Even though Molly‘s already out of print, you can find a copy either at your library or through a source such as Alibris.)

With fantastic, atmospheric details, McClintock paints the lively streets of a nineteenth-century London populated by an assortment of expressive birds, foxes, mice and other creatures, dressed in top hats, long gowns, and bonnets. Molly, a gray-and-white cat, is the wise sister and heroine of the story. With Mama ill, she sets out for the market to procure dinner. While carrying her basket of fish home, Molly meets a kind, elderly fairy godmother who tells her she will find a magic wishbone that will grant her one wish.

Molly searches for her sister.

“Sure enough, that night, right after all the fish was eaten, one thin white bone was left on Molly’s plate./ It must be true!” What will she wish for? While the younger siblings hatch visions of candy, toys, and such, Molly exercises patience and common sense. Just as she entertains wishing for a wardrobe of elegant dresses, little sis Phylis comes up missing. The impish kitten has sneaked out to seek a wishbone of her own and has become lost in the snowy streets. Molly realizes this is the time to put her magic to use.

I feel quite sure Dickens himself would embrace McClintock’s Molly and the Magic Wishbone, with its handsome illustrations and cozy, reassuring conclusion. Like her other children’s books, it both reflects and responds to the emotional needs of children (in this case, of ages 5 to 8).
Here are other McClintock books that are great to read aloud:

Related article

“What the Dickens?! For Kids!” from Riverfront Times.

The afternoon will sparkle with authors and illustrators meeting children and parents, offering their perspectives, and reading from their work. And that’s not all: the event offers half-hour writing workshops for children and even free books. What a feast for the eyes, ears, mind and spirit!

The book is a gorgeous affair, from its royal purple cloth cover to its end papers sprouting dreamily winding white vines, followed by radiant stories and images. Then there’s the fanciful Old World font, the lissome, newly commissioned silhouettes; and the astounding banquet of artwork, crisply reproduced in all their glory. If this doesn’t lure you into the Grimm brothers’ tales, nothing will.

Focusing on illustrations created from the 1820s to the 1950s, the collection offers an array of visual and literary riches.  The expected stars shine here: the British illustrators L. Leslie Brooke, Walter Crane, Arthur Rackham, and the quirky George Cruikshank, who illustrated the first English translation of the Grimms’ fairy tales. Acclaimed American artists include Wanda Gág (“The Fisherman and His Wife”) and Jessie Willcox Smith, with her radiant heroine for “The Goose Girl.” The fantastical illustrations of Nielsen grace three stories.

The editor has selected 27 appealing stories from the 1857 edition, which incorporated the brothers’ revisions designed to make the stories more engaging and suitable for both young and old audiences. The new translations by Mr. Price hew closely to the Grimm brothers’ versions, resulting in tales that bristle with energy and magic.

Kay Nielsen illustration for "Sleeping Beauty"

Arranged in the order in which the Grimm brothers published them, the tales seem both fresh and familiar. Such favorites as “The Frog Prince,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and “Rumpelstiltskin” are here, but the versions veer from many of the sanitized plots widely published. “Cinderella,” for instance, is no passive Barbie; instead, she’s a tenacious young woman who works to create her new destiny. She has no fairy godmother; instead, she prays at the hazel tree planted at her mother’s grave, and birds come to her aid. “Dear little tree,/Shake your branches and flutter your leaves/And let gold and silver fall down over me!” That’s how she gets her shimmering evening gown and slippers embroidered in silk and silver. She doesn’t need a pumpkin; she dashes off to the ball on her own, thank you. After Cinderella and the prince dance for hours, she needs no clock to tell her it’s time to go. When the smitten young man insists he will accompany her home, she gives him the slip.

Twice more this happens, until the prince wises up and orders the staircase covered in pitch. This time when Cinderella runs off, her golden slipper gets stuck. The gory measures the stepsisters take in order to force their feet into the shoe belonging to the prince’s true love will cause some adults to pause. The poetic justice meted out to them and their cruel mother at the end is also uncompromisingly stark. Adults may choose either to discuss the symbolic nature of the literature or simply to omit the violence when reading aloud to children.

Other folktales, however, do not give us reason to pause, even when reading to children as young as 5. The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm  contains gentle stories, such as “The Brave Little Tailor,” “The Golden Goose,” and the beloved “The Elves and the Shoemaker.” And you will encounter little-known treasures such as “The Star Coins,” which beautifully demonstrates the power and wisdom of generosity.

Viktor Paul Mohn lithograph for "The Star Coins"

Delights abound. Most readers will enjoy poring over the magical Old World artwork of the German illustrators Gustav Süs (“The Hare and the Hedgehog”) and Otto Speckter (“Rapunzel”). Wildly different from those are the witty, cartoonish color lithographs for “Puss ’n Boots,” done in 1946 by the Swiss illustrator Herbert Leupin. It’s nearly impossible not to marvel at the stunning variety of images contained in these many-colored pages.

And when the kinder have gone to bed, adults can ponder the editor’s insightful introductory essay and her concise, interesting biographies of the artists.

These strange and wonderful tales deserve to be part of our children’s heritage. Let this heirloom-quality collection cast its spell in your home.

Among the 1.8 million who traveled to Washington, DC, to witness the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama as the nation’s first black president were the author and her husband. Opening her memoir with a description of the event, Ms. Hunter-Gault says it led her to reflect on her own participation in the arduous trek toward equality.

Mingled with her excitement were bittersweet memories of the many braves ones lost along the way, whether through racist violence or from natural causes, including her friend and classmate Hamilton Holmes, who “walked into history with me through the gates of the University of Georgia.” Obama’s election marked a special place in that long journey fueled by the lyrics of the spiritual: “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me ’roun’/ . . . Keep on walkin’ / Keep on talkin’/ Walking up the Freedom Trail.”

Ms. Hunter-Gault employs a lively pace and an accessible, photo-filled format that provides historical context for her role in the Civil Rights movement. The black-and-white copies of New York Times front pages provide fascinating insight into the events she relates, beginning with the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that rejected the legitimacy of “separate but equal” facilities, including public schools. Despite the law, years of inequity and dimmed prospects dragged on, as no state in the Deep South initiated desegregation. Separate schools, trains, buses, parks, pools, restaurants, bathrooms, and even water fountains pocked the region. The author cites the conditions at her elementary school in little Covington, GA, which had raggedy, incomplete old textbooks, and no cafeteria.

In Atlanta, where her family moved when she was about 10, she benefited from dedicated teachers and a nurturing environment. “We lived happily apart and generally removed from the worst manifestations of segregation, hardly ever encountering overt hostility from whites.”

Such a fragile balance foundered, though, after four black students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College held a sit-in at Woolworth’s five-and-dime, in Greensboro, NC, in 1960. Soon sit-ins spread across the south, including Atlanta, as African-Americans glimpsed the possibilities of a more just society. Thousands of local college students took to the streets of downtown Atlanta in 1960. Charlayne began her reporting career by covering such events for the bold new Atlanta Inquirer. (Another staff writer, Julian Bond, became its managing editor before vaulting into a many-storied political career.)

A significant prospect prevented Ms. Hunter-Gault from participating in those protests. Although she had been admitted to Wayne State in Michigan, several Atlanta civil rights leaders encouraged her and another outstanding high-school classmates to apply to the all-white University of Georgia, the oldest public university in the nation. At a time when it was uncommon for white students to attend college so far from home, black students’ choices were limited. Georgia, like some other Southern states, provided money for black students to study out of state.

Charlayne and Hamilton Holmes, then enrolled at Morehouse, agreed to accept the challenge. Knowing an arrest would likely result from participating in a sit-in, she refused to give the University of Georgia an excuse to reject her application. For a few more months, Charlayne would wait for her opportunity to challenge racism.

In the fall, the author returned to Wayne State but was summoned to Atlanta for the December trial that would determine whether she and Hamilton would be allowed to enroll at UGA. The NYT headline proclaimed their success: “2 NEGRO STUDENTS ENTER GEORGIA U.: Integration Effected as U.S. Court Blocks Governor’s Effort to Shut School.”

The author began the year of 1961 by walking through the iconic black-iron arch that marks the entrance to the oldest part of the campus. Those steps would lead not only to her own success, but also to her own groundbreaking role in the Civil Rights movement. Although she endured cold stares, taunts, and a window-shattering brick, she found strength in recalling the Twenty-third Psalm, which her grandmother had taught her. And while the author alludes to being isolated in her own room (in the gracious four-story Myers Hall, where I lived in the late 1970s), she balances that experience with recollections of the horrifying violence encountered by Civil Rights activists throughout the South, especially as they worked for voting rights in the dangerous state of Mississippi.

Ms. Hunter-Gault triumphed with her journalism degree from UGA and then headed to New York, but many of her contemporaries, such as the Freedom Riders, intent on protecting voting rights, braved beatings and worse. John Lewis, the group’s first to take a blow, in Rockhill, SC, recalled being “prepared to die.” Many, in fact, did—black and white, young and old.

To the Mountaintop speaks to the power of the press in both accelerating and deepening public awareness of inequality, as journalists such as Ms. Hunter-Gault explore once-overlooked events and perspectives. “I could still make a contribution by reporting on people who had been excluded from the white-controlled media. I resolved to seek out stories that showed black people in all their humanity–their problems, as well as their achievements, struggles as well as victories.” From Harlem to Gaza, from Somalia to South Africa, she has cultivated those stories and shared them with the world.

Even as Ms. Hunter-Gault looks back on her own career and on the highlights of the movement, she points to issues that deserve action, including the still-unsolved Civil Rights-era murders. Citing the Haitian proverb “Beyond the mountain, more mountains,” she stresses that the struggle for justice is never over. A timeline and the full text of 10 NYT articles provide additional context for this engrossing and uplifting account.

Reprinted with permission from the New York Journal of Books.

Related link

• Civil Rights Digital Library Educators, don’t miss this fascinating source for primary resources. As the site points out, “The initiative promotes an enhanced understanding of the [Civil Rights] Movement through its three principal components: 1) a digital video archive of historical news film allowing learners to be nearly eyewitnesses to key events of the Civil Rights Movement, 2) a civil rights portal providing a seamless virtual library on the Movement by connecting related digital collections on a national scale, and 3) a learning objects component delivering secondary Web-based resources – such as contextual stories, encyclopedia articles, lesson plans, and activities–to facilitate the use of the video content in the learning process.”

Just as he feels he can go no farther, he spies the blazing lights of a house in the distance. He might yet survive—if only he can cross the frosty meadow and find a warm, dry place to spend the night.

Outside the house, the bundled-up walker finds an old man chopping wood and approaches him to ask: “Good evening, Father. I’m so glad I found you. Would you, by any chance, have a room where I could spend the night?” Such a simple question would normally lead to a simple answer, right?

Storyteller Ashley Ramsden, however, has staked out a wilder territory in his first picture book. He bases Seven Fathers on a lesser-known Norwegian folktale collected by the famous folklorists Asbjornsen and Moe (Norwegian Folk Tales. Reprinted by Pantheon, 1982.) Founder of the International School of Storytelling in Sussex, England, and co-author of a book on storytelling, Ramsden’s narrative powers are in full force here. His finely honed prose is studded with the repeated question that propels the tale into an increasingly strange landscape. Along the way, Mr. Ramsden traverses multiple levels of meaning, crafting a tale especially appealing to older children of a philosophical bent.

The traveler’s respectfully worded question meets with the same odd response each time: “I’m not the father of the house. You’ll have to ask my father.” Six more times, he must seek another man, each one somehow older than the other.

The bizarre nature of the man’s quest flares to life with Ed Young’s unique collages, laid on clay-colored paper throughout the book. The illustrator ushers us into the story with snow-spattered scenes, the protagonist roughly outlined in thick black ink lines.

Mr. Young, a Caldecott medalist, intersperses splotches of paint and simple drawings with an intriguing range of cut paper. As the protagonist warms up a bit, we get to see his face, drawn with a few black lines, peering out of his thick white hood, all the while keeping on his fur mittens. Mr. Young’s approach is minimalistic yet expressive, as in his depiction of the second father, his hair white-scrawled and his cheeks pinked by a fire the illustrator has built out of flame-looking scraps of paper.

On and on the traveler goes, penetrating further into a world where time has become elastic. As each father gets older, it becomes difficult to hear and, eventually, even to see him. The sixth father has shrunken so small he fits in a cradle. Yet even he tells the man he must go and ask that question to his father. The story traces the symbolic nature of the journey until it reaches its satisfying conclusion.

While younger children might not grasp the implications of a spiritual quest, they will understand the folktale’s message of respect for elders and the importance of perseverance. For those seven and older, Seven Fathers offers a folktale brimming with subtle humor and mystery fresh as new-fallen snow.

Reprinted with permission from New York Journal of Books

And for more frosty folk or fairy tales:

After telling that story, I’d read the group Taback’s cheerful Caldecott-winning Joseph Had a Little Overcoat, holding up each page with its fun die-cut hole so the children could guess what Joseph would make next. This lively picture book, illustrated with watercolors, gouache, pencil, ink and collage, provides a banquet of buttons, bright scraps of fabric, petite photos of flowers, all popping out from the pages’ dark background. Listeners get to peep through smaller and smaller holes, as the items — a vest, a tie, etc. — diminish in size.

Based on the Yiddish song “Hob Ich Mir a Mantl,” or “I Had a Little Overcoat,” which Taback loved as a boy, this book belongs in EVERY child’s school or home library. Not only does it make for a rousing read-aloud, its evocation of Eastern European shtetls provides a link to a rich culture. And the message of making the most of whatever you have is a timely and important one for us all. Educators or parents can tap this little treasure for lessons in recycling, music, social studies, art, and reading, especially in teaching the skill of prediction. Taback includes the lyrics to the song that inspired the story.

Sadly, Simms Taback died of pancreatic cancer last Sunday. He has bequeathed us his bright, unforgettable books to share with children:

Related articles

• Simms Taback, Author of Wry Children’s Books, Dies at 79               (nytimes.com)

Don’t let appearances deceive you; Ladder to the Moon, the debut picture book by Maya Soetoro-Ng, is not some simple book to lull a little one to sleep. This author sets out to weave a hopeful and fantastical story that embraces the whole world’s humanity.

Inspired by memories of her mother, Ann Dunham — also President Barack Obama’s mom — telling her stories at night, Ms. Soetoro-Ng takes us on a journey from here to the moon and back.

We meet Suhaila, a small, curious girl who asks her mama, “What was Grandma Annie like?” Her mom replies, “Your grandma would wrap her arms around the whole world if she could.” Later that night, as the child lies in bed pondering her mother’s words, a golden ladder appears outside her window. At the bottom stands her grandmother, “her silver-bangled arms outstretched and tinkling. ‘Do you want an adventure, my dimpled child?’ ” she asks.

Together, Suhaila and her grandmother climb the ladder to the moon, where they can gaze down and observe the full range of wonder and woe taking place across the universe. Grandma Annie shares her wisdom with the girl, and urges her to listen to the moon’s songs, to observe how people need help, to join others in the work that needs to be done. She does not shield Suhaila from the world’s troubles, whether they be tsunamis, earthquakes, or “two tall towers that trembled and swayed on quaking soil.” Annie goes on to encourage her little one to see how people around the world survive tragedy by relying on faith, love, hope, community.

This imaginative plot soars off with the swirly, radiant acrylic paintings by Yuyi Morales, three-time winner of the Pura Belpré prize. With her bold, thick brush strokes; energetic curves; and gorgeous azure and golden hues, she infuses the story with much mystery and movement.

Younger children will not understand all the implications of Ladder to the Moon, but older ones and caring adults might be inspired by Annie’s goal: “We’ll throw in our hearts and minds, and work with our hands to make the land a little more kind.” As we approach the new year, that seems like a wonderful goal, doesn’t it?

You can hear more about Soetoro-Ng’s childhood and her inspiration for this picture book in this interview.

For two simpler books that celebrate our global community, see these nonfiction books:

One World, One Day by Barbara Kerley

Rabbi Judah makes a giant man of clay who doesn’t know when to quit. Just before the first night of Hanukkah, the rabbi must go speak to the emperor. He tells his new maid Basha to  clean the house and cook lots of latkes while he’s gone, for he’s expecting many guests. Although the rabbi has never allowed anyone else to supervise the golem, he decides to make an exception this time, considering all the tasks she must manage. He warns Basha, however, not to leave the golem alone. The giant will work incessantly unless someone tells him “Enough!”

Of course, the young woman does not heed his warning — and chaos ensues. The golem makes so many latkes they literally take over the street! Kimmel’s happy ending has everyone in the village sharing the feast.

For more wondrous Hanukkah stories, consider …

“The Magic Menorah” in Howard Schwartz’s fine collection The Day the Rabbi Disappeared: Jewish Holiday Tales of Magic. Recommended for ages 8-12.

Hanukkah Moon by Deborah da Costa. A girl visits her aunt Luisa, whose Latina-Jewish customs include a dreidel pinata. There’s also a mysterious late-night visit to welcome the luna nueva, the new moon that appears on Hanukkah. Ages 6 to 8.

Just Enough Is Plenty by Barbara Diamond Goldin. A magical story of kindness rewarded. A poor family welcomes a stranger into their home, and the peddlar turns out to be Elijah, who leaves them a pack of fine gifts. Ages 7 to 10.

And see my post featuring Eric Kimmel’s When Mindy Saved Hanukkah and other great Hanukkah picture books for ages 6-10.

Related articles

• Hanukkah Crafts for Kids (thecraftycrow.net)