The Women Who Caught the Babies by Eloise Greenfield & Illus by Daniel Minter

Oh my word. This book is so gorgeous. 

It begins with a little historical note about African-American midwives. 

And then the amazing Eloise Greenfield launches into poetry illustrated eloquently by Daniel Minter. 

These pictures are not the greatest, so I strongly advise you to find a copy of this ASAP.

There is such a geometric/batik quality to the detail here that seems so timeless. 

And those biceps....!!

I don't pretend to fully understand all the art, but that might be what adds an element of awe to it. 

Greenfield writes poems throughout the centuries up until the present day, but doesn't overwhelm the reader with words or poems. Spare word use and only a poem or two a century, make the words stand out. 

Emancipation Proclamation--the first child born free. 

The early 2000's

Welcome them into the world for loving. 

Swoon. 

I don't feel this review really portrays the magnificence of this book (okay, it doesn't at all--I don't know what is wrong with my camera) but trust me on this--it is incredible. 

The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander and Kadir Nelson

This book!!

Well I mean, what would you expect from two rock stars in the kid lit world? 

Kwame Alexander wrote this poem for his newborn daughter in 2008, right after Obama had been elected. 

He wanted to honor all the African-Americans that had faced so many obstacles and leapt over them like Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics. 

Those who survived America by any means necessary...

And those who didn't. 

This blank page--so powerful. 

This is for the undeniable

the ones who scored

with chains 

on one hand

and faith 

in the other.

Luminaries.

...To save an imperfect Union.

Kadir Nelson's pictures are amazing! Every time I pick up one of the books he has worked on I am blown away by the attention to detail, the intensity of each subject. 

And this page really gets me right in the gut. The lives given to fight for this country that enslaved them because they refused to believe that men could be that unremittingly vile forever. 

The audacity of hope. 

...the unspeakable.

Modern unpeakables.

A roll call of famous African-Americans athletes....

...and the undiscovered.

Musicians

How does Kadir Nelson get that glimmering, almost-crying look in people's eyes so perfectly? HOW? 

There is so much hope and love and optimism on this page that it gets me every time. 

This is for you. 

Steamboat School by Deborah Hopkinson & Illus by Ron Husband

My mother sent me a list of books about school from the NY Times. I had to go request them all from the library. 

This one is really incredible. Based on a true story, this is about an 1847 Missouri law banning any person from teaching an African-American to read or write and the Reverend John Berry Meachum who found a way to work around the law.  

Going to school was not what a young James wanted to do. 

But his Mama told him this was a proud day!

The day James started at Reverend John's Tallow School. Since the school was in the church basement, they had to use candles to make their own light.

Despite James' lack of enthusiasm, he began to learn from Reverend John.

Until some men came and broke the school up. 

It is hard to think that grown men could come up with such a silly law and even sillier to think they would actually enforce it. Prejudice is a terrible thing. 

The school was closed.

James wasn't sure when that school and Reverend John had become important to him, but they had. 

I felt as if a penny I had counted on had fallen out of my pocket.

James kept working at what Reverend John had been teaching him.

He practiced reading.

Until the day came when Reverend John asked James and his older sister Tassie to help him fix up an old riverboat.

When the steamboat was finished, the word was whispered around.

"In three days' time, meet at dawn, meet where the river bends. Be careful."

And there was their new school.

Because the river was federal territory and Missouri couldn't enforce state laws on federal territory.

Reverend John Berry Meachum was a slave who bought his freedom through working in the saltpeter mines. (I have no idea what saltpeter mines are.) He then worked and bought his father, and wife from slavery. He then bought some slaves himself, freeing them and asking them to work to pay back the purchase price. He then became prominent in education and church service.

This guy was a superhero. 

This is a really good book to get kids talking about civil rights and how ridiculous laws like this were. The end of the book has an Explore More page with resources for further research. I feel like this would work great with third graders who are just starting to research things.

Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford and Illustrated by Kadir Nelson

I had a promising Martin Luther King Jr. book on order at the library, which I intended to do for today, but  I was a little behind schedule in requesting it. Oh well, I can consider it very early reasearch for next year. Or I could be wild and crazy and post it not on Martin Luther King Jr.'s Day. 

In lieu of MLK books, I will do another amazing African American, Harriet Tubman. 

I am a little conflicted about this book. Harriet Tubman is an amazing woman and the illustration by Kadir Nelson are gorgeous and glowing. But Harriet Tubman is carrying on a conversation with God a lot of the way. Now I have a fierce belief and trust in God, but I also have a...well... for lack of a better term, New England reticence, that makes me feel a relationship with God is a pretty private thing. Not because I am ashamed, but because it is too precious a thing to pull out and have random people poke and prod. 

So in some ways, I feel like I am eavesdropping where I shouldn't be when I read this book. But that is just my own weird hang up. 

This really is an amazing story. 

The words are lyrical.

"I set the North Star in the heavens and I mean for you to be free."

I can't even imagine how much those words would have meant to a slave. 

Aren't the pictures fabulous? 

The book chronicles the difficulties of her own, first journey north, with just a brief mention at the end about her bringing others. 

Being a runaway was almost as bad as being a slave--the constant fear and worry. But the hope and light of the future, of being free, would have been something slaves never had. 

She had to hide for days in a potato hole. Seven days I believe. Can you imagine the endurance? The uncomfortable, crampedness of it all? 

"As far as you can walk with me, my child, and I can carry you."

She reaches freedom safely, (forgot to take a picture of this page, but it is the picture from the cover). Oh the peace and beauty of that moment. Of being able to walk free. Of being safe after the grueling journey and constant vigilance.

And then, life as a freed woman. But all the while, she was thinking of the ones she left behind. 

And for them, and many others, she was willing to go through all that pain, the fear and uncertainty, to win them their freedom too. She took nineteen trips south and brought back as many as three hundred slaves to freedom. 

An incredible, selfless woman.