Böcker av Nancy Johnson James

A poetic picture book biography about blind Black poet Myra Viola Wilds, written by the author of Brown: The Many Shades of LoveWhat dreams do you carry? Myra Viola Wilds dreamed of opportunity. She left her home in rural Kentucky for the city, learned to read and to write, and became a dressmaker. She hand-stitched gorgeous gowns. She worked so hard she lost her eyesight, and her world went dark. But those well-loved stitches turned into words, and one night Myra woke in the middle of the night and wrote a poem she called “Sunshine.” She kept writing. She wrote the lush green, sweet-corn yellow, cerulean blue, sunshine-y world from memory, collecting her poems into a book called Thoughts of Idle Hours, published in 1915.Written in Wilds’s style, this lyrical, gorgeously illustrated picture book biography celebrates this little-known poet and includes a biography that provides context to her life—the Great Migration, Jim Crow segregation—as well a photograph and a small selection of her poems.

A child describes all the beautiful shades of blue they feel, from a pale winter sky to a bright ocean wave, and discovers that one has the power to change one's many blues into a song or a poem, blue into gold.

EXPANSIVE LANGUAGE: Author Nancy Johnson James continues in her efforts to expand the vocabulary associated with colors.PROVEN DUO: James and illustrator Constance Moore are both Black female teachers based in Oakland, California, and are avid promoters within their community and beyond.POETIC APPROACH: Rather than focusing on skin tone alone, Black calls attention to the beauty of the hue in the world, making it a lovely complement to Brown.MIXED MEDIA: A blend of watercolor, textile, and stitching makes for eye-catching art.