Love’s Arduous Path
13 Feb 2012 4 Comments
in Historical fiction, Picture Books Tags: African-American history, Colin Bootman, Frederick Douglass, Glenda Armand
How can an author squeeze sweetness from such bitter facts: A mother must give up her son 
upon his birth. Forced to work in the cornfields 12 miles away, she gets to see her boy only a few times before she dies.
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
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A Storm Called Katrina
01 Aug 2011 1 Comment
in Historical fiction, Picture Books Tags: Colin Bootman, Harry Shearer, Hurricane Katrina, multicultural literature, Myron Uhlberg, New Orleans, Ninth Ward of New Orleans
Uhlberg, Myron. A Storm Called Katrina. Illus. by Colin Bootman. Peachtree, 2011.
“Don’t you worry now,” Mama told Louis. “After some huffin’ and puffin’, Katrina will blow away and land up the coast just like all those other hurricanes.” What no one anticipated, however, is that the hurricane that landed August 29, 2005, would break the levees and alter the landscape and even the language of New Orleans.
By focusing on the experiences of a particular fictional family, Myron Uhlberg renders a moving story built around that event and its chaotic aftermath. The narrator is ten-year-old Louis, named after the legendary jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong. As the storm rattles his darkened bedroom window, Louis hugs his shiny brass cornet and somehow feels better.
At last the rain stopped, but when Daddy opened the door the next day, something worse appeared: water seeped in. With no time for packing or planning, Louis and his parents join others desperate to escape their inundated neighborhood. Louis snatches his precious horn from the coffee table before leaving.
Realistic, well-chosen details suffuse the oil paintings by award-winning artist Colin Bootman, who also illustrated Uhlberg’s picture book Dad, Jackie and Me. He situates the family’s simple, well-loved abode in its neighborhood of shotgun houses of many hues, lived in by people of various races, but mostly by other African-Americans. He captures the folks’ worried expressions and especially the family’s care for each other as they venture through flooded streets, holding hands.
Employing a striking palette of deep marine blues and mutable shades of turquoise, Mr. Bootman immerses readers in a watery world where normalcy vanishes. Can a porch become a boat? Can streets become rivers? Can a neighborhood disappear in one day? Such is the stuff of nightmares or Alice-in-Wonderland fantasies – or of the real world that families such as Louis’s encountered that day. Brightness occasionally pierces the illustrator’s dark images – the glint of Louis’s cornet, a dazzling, blue sky; an artificial Christmas tree drifting by, ornaments still attached; and most troubling to Louis, a lost dog with a red ball. Mama, Daddy, and Louis keep floating on a piece of someone’s torn-off porch, unable to care for the pup.
As the waters rise, so does the tension. Louis grabs a broom to help steer their “lifeboat.” Who wouldn’t wonder what might lie beneath those murky waters? The author hints at the existence of dead bodies in the water, as Louis’s broom hits a pile of clothes. Mama quickly covers his eyes and tells him not to look.
The family’s tortuous journey takes them to the higher ground of the Superdome, where multitudes of people are crowding the gates. The bewildering bigness of the Dome, its white roof punctured by storm winds, comes across in Mr. Bootman’s painting of the family surveying the football field from their perch in the distant stands. In a story filled with irony, the family’s predicament seems even darker in the stadium that when floating on the bit of porch.
Yet, Mr. Uhlberg does not offer us a story of helpless victims. Children will thrill to the quick thinking of Louis, who comes up with the perfect solution when Daddy loses sight of the family. And, interestingly, thanks to Mama’s decisiveness, the family eschews the yellow schoolbuses that finally arrive to take the stranded elsewhere.
The author and illustrator beautifully balance this troubling tale with just the right amount of optimism. Even the dog with the red ball has reason to yelp with joy, as it gets to join Louis and his parents on their way back home. Adults will no doubt notice the vague, muted horizon confronting the family and will wonder how they will cope with the obstacles ahead. The simple answer evoked by Mr. Bootman’s concluding image is this: by putting one foot in front of the other.
The somber facts of the flooding that killed 1,800 people show up in the author’s note, along with three photographs relevant to the picture book. The author’s suggestions for additional books and websites will prove helpful for young researchers.
A portion of the proceeds from sales of A Storm Called Katrina will be donated to the Norman Mayer Library, which is being rebuilt in the Ninth Ward neighborhood of Gentilly, New Orleans, the setting for this story.
Reprinted by permission of NYJournalofBooks.com
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Take Me Out to the Ballgame
20 May 2011 2 Comments
in Picture Books, Sports, Spring stories Tags: Baseball, Colin Bootman, E.B. Lewis, Jackie Robinson, Major League Baseball, Richard Michelson, Sports
Peanuts, Cracker Jacks, and a good baseball story or two make for a fine afternoon, come rain or come shine. Even if you’re not a fan of the sport, you’ll find plenty to cheer about if you bypass most of the lackluster new titles in favor of these children’s books.
Uhlberg, Myron. Dad, Jackie, and Me. illus. by Colin Bootman. Peachtree, 2005. Ages 7-10. Don’t miss this fine historical fiction, set in the summer of 1947 in New York. Jackie Robinson, the new first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, has inspired a boy’s deaf father to follow baseball. The boy can barely believe his good luck when his dad gets tickets to see the Giants vs. Dodgers game at Ebbets Field. Uhlberg, who has written about growing up with his own deaf father, puts readers right there in the ballpark. At first the boy’s embarrassed as his father chants Jackie’s name as “AH-GHEE, AH-GHEE, AH-GHEE!” The excitement is contagious, though, and other fans join in. Adults reading this aloud to a group can invite children to join in, with some chanting “Jackie” while others say “Ah-ghee.” It’s impossible not to root for Robinson, especially as the author shows how the great player calmly persevered despite racist taunts from the Giants fans. The boy and his dad share much joy that season, filling scrapbooks with newspaper clippings and getting a special surprise at the end. Bootman’s realistic paintings capture the thrill of the game, as well as interesting details of the era. Schneider Family Book Award (2006). For younger children, try Luke Goes to Bat by Rachel Isadora.
Michelson, Richard. Across the Alley. illus. by E.B. Lewis. Penguin, 2006. Ages 6-9. Two boys, one Jewish and the other African-American, become friends, but they play only at night. Such are the constraints of their segregated world. Lewis, acclaimed for his illustrations, provides a memorable visual metaphor for the boys’ relationship, with his watercolor painting of the two playing catch between their windows. Willie’s dad, a starter in the Negro leagues, expects his son to play ball in the majors. Abe’s Jewish grandfather, a violinist before World War II, intends for his grandson to become a classical musician. At night, though, the boys trade for the hobby that suits each one. When Abe’s grandfather discovers Willie is a talented violinist, he asks him to play at the temple. People stare as Willie’s dad, Abe’s grandfather, and the boys walk there. Willie’s dad points out, “Ignorance comes in as many colors as talent.” Willie triumphs at the recital, and Abe enjoys the baseball game later that day. The loving families have found a way to honor not only the boys’ true talents and feelings, but also a way past the prejudice that surrounds them.
Older children might enjoy such novels as the delightful In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson and fiction by Fred Bowen, Matt Christopher, Dan Gutman, and Mike Lupica.
