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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 811.54
EAN: 9780060295059
ISBN: 0060295058
Label: Amistad
Manufacturer: Amistad
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 48
Publication Date: 2007-01-01
Publisher: Amistad
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
Product Release Date: 2006-12-26
Studio: Amistad

In 1956, Pulitzer Prize winner Gwendolyn Brooks created a collection of poems that celebrated the joy, beauty, imagination, and freedom of childhood. She reminded us that whether we live in the Bronzeville section of Chicago or any other neighborhood, childhood is universal in its richness of emotions and experiences. And now a brand-new generation of readers will savor Ms. Brooks's poems in this stunning reillustrated edition that features vibrant paintings by Caldecott Honor artist Faith Ringgold.

Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A tip of the hat to an all time great
Review: We needn't act so surprised that the great twentieth century American poet Gwendolyn Brooks wrote books of poetry for children. What could be more natural? This poet shares her gifts with the small people that inhabit her hometown (in this case, Chicago). What did surprise me was the original publication date of this title. Now I read through this entire collection of urban poetry and I had a fairly clear idea that these poems must have been written in the 1970s. After all, collections of poems featuring African-American children were just beginning to blossom after the Civil Rights movement. I was feeling pretty smug until I glanced at the date in question. 1956. So roughly twenty years before the United States understood the importance of creating children's literature for people from all walks of life, Gwendolyn Brooks was taking matters into her own hands.

"Bronzeville Boys and Girls" collects thirty-four short poems about children into a single compendium. Each poem contains the name of a child. This child is either the subject of the poem, or the person delivering it. Taken as a whole, the book feels like nothing so much as a slightly updated series of nursery rhymes. Brooks is an accomplished poet and there is something about the way her lines scan that feels old and established. Take, for example, this poem entitled, "John, Who Is Poor". "Give him a berry, boys, when you may/ And, girls, some mint when you can/ And do not ask when his hunger will end/ Nor yet when it began". For me, these poems acknowledge the struggles that all children, regardless of race, face in the world's poverty laden big cities. Though most the poems have an element of whimsy or light-heartedness to them, many are socially conscious. The boy who does not receive what he wants for Christmas reflects, "To frown or fret would not be fair/ My Dad must never know I care/ It's hard enough for him to bear". You won't find any poems about some of the harsher aspects of city living (drugs, prostitution, etc.) that are so common these days, in part because this book was published so very long ago. Also, it is written with a distinctly young age group in mind. Accompanying Ms. Brooks's verses are various illustrations by Ronni Solbert. The combination of words with images felt almost like a predecessor to Shel Silverstein at times, though I'd be hard pressed to tell you exactly why. It's just something about the occasional silliness of the children pictured.

At the moment, the big urban nursery rhyme crowd pleaser is the accomplished, "The Neighborhood Mother Goose". But that book just restructures old nursery rhymes for contemporary kids. Gwendolyn Brooks went so far as to create new and exiting nursery rhymes for the children of her day and age. Today, most of them read as crisp and clearly as they did the day they were made. There are some exceptions, of course. A couple poems feel a little stilted or overly formal towards the kids reading them today. But many are fine examples of superior writing. If you ever find that you are able to locate a copy of "Bronzeville Boys and Girls", I suspect that you will not regret the fact any time soon.

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