BHM: Corduroy and Whistle for Willie

The books I've highlighted so far are about Black History. The books I intend to highlight this week do not relate to historical events. But they speak of an aspect of Black History by their very existence. The first two (for yesterday and today) are books whose main character is Black, but they are both written by white authors. Tomorrow I'll bring us closer to the present with a book by a Black author. I haven't done any serious research, but I'm guessing there wasn't much support for Black authors in the 60's when these first two books were published.

Written in 1968 by Don Freeman, Corduroy is the story of "a bear who once lived in the toy department of a big store. Day after day he waited … for somebody to come along and take him home.” Lisa wants him but mom dissuades her. She comes back later with the money from her piggy bank, and takes him home. Corduroy is a simple story of the friendship between a girl and a stuffed bear. My son has loved it for most of his life.

Written in 1964 by Ezra Jack Keats, Whistle for Willie is about Peter and his dog, Willie. Peter wants to be able to whistle for Willie, but he can't quite get it. The book follows Peter and Willie in their day's adventures.

Does anyone know of any good picture books with Black protagonists, written by a Black author before 1970? I'd be eager to find more 'classics'.

BHM: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Hmm, yesterday I said I'd tell about this book today, but it's not a picture book. Maybe I can figure out a picture book that goes with this one somehow.

In Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred Taylor, Cassie Logan tells us about her family. They own a farm in Mississippi, and it's the 1930's. Impressively, at the beginning of the story Cassie has no notion that whites would consider her family inferior. But when she goes to a store in town and the shopkeeper waits on every white person in the store before dealing with her, she is faced with the ugly reality. I haven't been able to find my copy today, so can't tell much more of the storyline. But the solidity and courage of her family in the face of racist attacks has stayed with me for many years.

I hope to raise my son with as solid a sense of himself and as much courage as Cassie Logan showed.

Taylor has written a sequel, Let the Circle Be Unbroken, and a wide range of other books (most shorter) about the Logan family. In my search for more information, I found this biographical site, where Mildred Taylor said, "As a small child, I loved the South. In my early years, the trip was a marvelous adventure, a twenty-hour picnic that took us into another time and another world." And that reminds me of a thoroughly delightful picture book set in the south - Bigmama's, by Donald Crews. I think he'd describe his trips south in the same way. This book is the best vicarious experience of the pleasures of summertime I ever had.

BHM: Escaping Slavery, Sweet Clara

Ok, I promise, this is the last post on escaping slavery, and then I'll move on. Like Big Jabe, Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, by Deborah Hopkinson, with paintings by James Ransome, is fiction. Big Jabe is like the stories people told themselves to keep up their courage (like the folk history of The People Could Fly, by Virginia Hamilton), while Sweet Clara's story is more realistic - like the stories people told each other to share the path to freedom.

Oney Judge and Henry Brown had unusual circumstances. Most people did not have the same sorts of opportunities to escape that they did. And their need for secrecy means that we have less evidence of their lives. So most of the stories told about them almost have to be fictional. And then, even real people like Harriet Tubman show up in some great fiction, like Aunt Harriet's Underground Railroad in the Sky, by Faith Ringgold. The quilt in this story tells whether it's safe to approach a house for shelter, while Sweet Clara's quilt make a map.

Sweet Clara was taken away from her momma before she was twelve, to work in the fields of another plantation close by. She was taken in by 'Aunt' Rachel, who helped her learn to sew, and got her moved from the fields to the Big House. While she sewed, she thought, and listened. And one day she began to sew a quilt from scraps, "blue calico and flowered blue silk for creeks and rivers, and greens and blue-greens for the fields, and white sheeting for roads."

This story of a quilt, and of a journey, is very moving. Deborah Hopkinson has written an equally moving sequel in verse. Under the Quilt of Night is also supported by James Ransome's moving illustrations.

One last quilt story: In Show Way, Jacqueline Woodson tells the story of her own family's memories of sewing messages about the path to freedom into quilts.

Tomorrow: Sometimes we help our children become strong by protecting them from the painful realities around us.

PSA: Wear Your Seatbelt, a Video

I got tears in my eyes when I watched this video. It’s perfect.

(I wonder if it works well for kids, too. I’d expect ads that get kids bugging their parents to wear a seatbelt to be wildly effective.)

BHM: Escaping Slavery, Big Jabe

Unlike the last two books I reviewed, this one is fictional ... as far as we know. In the tradition of tall tales, Jerdine Nelson tells the story of Big Jabe, with the help of Kadir Nelson's powerful illustrations.

Addy has gone fishing and hasn't caught "nary a one", when she sees a boy floating down the river in a basket. He hands her a golden pear, and plants its seeds after she's eaten it. Then he calls the fish to jump in her wagon, which they obligingly do. There's feasting that night, at the Big House, and in the Quarters.

By June, Jabe is a full-grown man "with the strength of fifty. He could weed a whole field of soybeans before sunup, hoe the back forty by midday, and mend ten miles of fence by sunset." With all that help, there's time for leisure, and Addy gets to fish more, under that new pear tree.

The overseer gets mad and tries to punish some of the other slaves, but they keep disappearing. The story keeps me on the edge of my seat every time I read it.

BHM: Escaping Slavery, Henry Brown

Henry's Freedom Box, by Ellen Levine, tells the story of Henry Brown. Born a slave in Virginia, he was taken away from his family when he was about 15, to work in a tobacco factory in Richmond, Virginia. While living there he married Nancy, and they had 3 children together. They were owned by different masters, and one day her master sold her and their children away to a plantation in North Carolina - Henry could do nothing about it. He was devastated, and eventually determined to escape to freedom. With the help of two friends, who nailed him into a box, he mailed himself to Philadelphia, where he was able to live as a free man.

We love Kadir Nelson's illustrations. Tomorrow, another book warmed by Nelson's illustrations.

BHM: Escaping Slavery, Oney Judge

As the white (single) mama of a Black and Latino son, it's important to me to tell him of the strength of his people. We've enjoyed lots of books about people escaping from slavery. A few are true stories.

The Escape of Oney Judge: Martha Washington's Slave Finds Freedom, by Emily Arnold McCully, tells a fascinating bit of history. The young Oney Judge was Martha Washington's seamstress, and at 16 had to leave her mother behind when George Washington assumed the presidency and the Washingtons traveled from Mount Vernon to New York City. A few years later they moved, along with the nation's capital, to Philadelphia. Although the Washingtons had slaves with them there, there were also many free Blacks in the city, and a law that said that an adult slave living there for 6 months must be freed.

When Oney found out that upon Martha Washington's death she would be given to Martha's son-in-law, she knew she needed to escape. Free Black friends helped her arrange passage on a ship, to New England, and one day she simply walked away. She lived in New Hampshire, and still had to worry about the possibility of being taken back. That would have been a public relations problem for George Washington - it didn't happen. She married and had three children. (Here's more information.)

Tomorrow, the story of a slave who mailed himself to freedom.