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Summary
Summary
From a father-son team comes a gorgeous picture book that "pays tribute to the variety of America as well as to its promise--in Christopher Myers's words, 'the question mark of it.'" (Washington Post) "An inclusive, unblinkered variation of patriotism." (New York Times)
With sweeping panoramic paintings and text rich with historical allusion, this stunning picture book features passionate writings and vivid portraits of political Americans, from Shawnee chief Tecumseh to Abraham Lincoln to Jimi Hendrix. This is a book to share at home or in the classroom, sure to spark questions and engage students, especially in third through fifth grade.
New York Times bestselling author Walter Dean Myers and Caldecott Honor artist Christopher Myers celebrate the freedom dream that is America: our struggles, our ideals, and our hope that we can live up to them. What is it to be an American? To live in a strange and beautiful land of complexity, with a tumultuous history of epic proportions, among the people who were here first, who came after, who will come tomorrow.
Over the centuries, from a blank canvas of mountains, plains, and canyons, the American landscape has been richly carved by revolution, progress, and possibility. Yet its story is still being written.
With graceful, lyrical prose and evocative paintings, Newbery Honor author Walter Dean Myers and Coretta Scott King Honor artist Christopher Myers, the father-son team who created Harlem, pay tribute to the spirit and soul that is America.
Author Notes
Walter Dean Myers was born on August 12, 1937 in Martinsberg, West Virginia. When he was three years old, his mother died and his father sent him to live with Herbert and Florence Dean in Harlem, New York. He began writing stories while in his teens. He dropped out of high school and enlisted in the Army at the age of 17. After completing his army service, he took a construction job and continued to write.
He entered and won a 1969 contest sponsored by the Council on Interracial Books for Children, which led to the publication of his first book, Where Does the Day Go? During his lifetime, he wrote more than 100 fiction and nonfiction books for children and young adults. His works include Fallen Angels, Bad Boy, Darius and Twig, Scorpions, Lockdown, Sunrise Over Fallujah, Invasion, Juba!, and On a Clear Day. He also collaborated with his son Christopher, an artist, on a number of picture books for young readers including We Are America: A Tribute from the Heart and Harlem, which received a Caldecott Honor Award, as well as the teen novel Autobiography of My Dead Brother.
He was the winner of the first-ever Michael L. Printz Award for Monster, the first recipient of the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement, and a recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults. He also won the Coretta Scott King Award for African American authors five times. He died on July 1, 2014, following a brief illness, at the age of 76.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The father and son team behind Jazz and other award-winning titles pays homage to the entire United States in a soul-searching, free-verse poem examining the people, ideals, and promise of America. The verse journeys along a rough historical chronology. "Before the ships came... My Lakota heart pounded the rhythms/ Of this sacred land." Following are dreams of and fights for freedom, and periods of unrest and abuse (slavery, Japanese internment), when "Like clumsy children we fell/ As we learned to run." Christopher Myers's evocative paintings often juxtapose different eras; a scene in which a firefighter turns his hose on a group of African-Americans melds into the Boston Tea Party. "We were willing to die/ to forge our dream," the accompanying verses begin. Like many passages, it has multiple interpretations. In opening, Walter Dean Myers writes, "No words here have been penned lightly, no flag waved mindlessly," and his introspective reflections offer proof. Closing notes explicate quotations that lace the pages and identify figures shown in the artwork. It's best appreciated by readers with some knowledge of American history, but few will be unmoved by this stirring and provocative collaboration. Ages 7-12. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Father and son team up for this reflection on United States history. The promise and potential of America are explored with a quotation (credited in the notes), poem, and mural-like painting on each spread (the art notes cite page numbers not included on spreads). The backmatter is essential for understanding the content and will make this useful in classrooms. (c) Copyright 2011. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Feeling distanced from the wave of patriotism that followed 9/11, Walter Dean Myers turned to America's founding documents, which inspired him to pay his own tribute to our country's history and pen these 14 short, free-verse poems. Beginning with a call out to native peoples Before There Was America, the selections move forward through time, covering such subjects as immigration and expansionism, slavery and civil rights, war and art, and opportunity and injustice. Each entry is set against a blank space with an illuminating quote from varied sources, including Tecumseh, Abraham Lincoln, Barbara Jordan, and the U.S. Constitution. Across the spread from each poem are Christopher Myers' colorful paintings, which incorporate references in the lyrical lines. The appended back matter includes more information about the quotations, along with notes about the artwork. Widely inclusive and full of passion and pride, the book concludes with portraits of citizens, famous and otherwise, above the lines, To each child a freedom dream / To each soul the sweet taste of liberty / To each heart give the promise / Of America.--Medlar, Andre. Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
Napoli brings a new real-life character, Jean Baptiste, the son of Sacagawea, into the popular tale of Lewis and Clark's transcontinental journey. Sacagawea was pregnant when the expedition began, but this book picks up mid-journey, with Jean Baptiste snuggled and bound to his mother's back. "The Crossing" offers little background, save an author's note, but poetic text and lush artwork tell an evocative story for children familiar with the history. LIPMAN PIKE America's First Home Run King. By Richard Michelson. Illustrated by Zachary Pullen. 32 pp. Sleeping Bear. $16.95. (Picture book; ages 6 to 10) Michelson offers a short biography of Lip Pike, credited with being the first paid professional as well as the first Jewish ball player (a combination that did not always please fans). Pullen's painted portraits beautifully capture character and emotion in this homage to "the Iron Batter" and baseball's earliest days. BEN FRANKLIN His Wit and Wisdom From A-Z. By Alan Schroeder. Illustrated by John O'Brien. 32 pp. Holiday House. $16.95. (Picture book; ages 6 to 10) How best to convey to children the mind-blowing multitude of Ben Franklin's interests? A kind of alphabetical almanac, of course! Schroeder sprinkles a great sampling of Franklin quotations throughout, and O'Brien, whose work will be familiar to New Yorker cartoon fans, creates busy, vibrant and captivating spreads that children will love poring over. WE ARE AMERICA A Tribute From the Heart. By Walter Dean Myers. Illustrated by Christopher Myers. 40 pp. Collins/HarperCollins. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 7 to 12) This heart-on-its-sleeve collaboration between writer father and illustrator son mixes stirring verse with expressive panoramas that mix thematic events across time: African slaves, Chinese railroad laborers and Detroit factory workers in one tableau. Best for children with a firm grasp of history, "We Are America" offers an inclusive, unblinkered variation of patriotism. MR. SAM How Sam Walton Built Wal-Mart and Became America's Richest Man. By Karen Blumenthal. Illustrated. 186 pp. Viking. $17.99. (Middle grade/young adult; ages 10 and up) A reporter who covered Wal-Mart for The Wall Street Journal for five years has done the improbable: she has created a superb business book for children. "Mr. Sam" turns the subject of the local big-box eyesore into a snappy, accessible and winning story about American business and retail culture. Smart, funny, full of good stories and telling detail, this is a well-researched account of the man behind the largest - and perhaps most controversial - store in the country. AMERICAPEDIA Taking the Dumb Out of Freedom. By Jodi Lynn Anderson, Daniel Ehrenhaft and Andisheh Nouraee. Illustrated. 240 pp. Walker. Cloth, $24.99. Paper, $16.99. (Young adult; ages 12 and up) This graphics-rich collaboration by three Gen X writers is like Jon Stewart's "America" for the Y.A. set. But unlike Stewart's readers - at least theoretically - the intended audience for "Americapedia" still needs to learn the basics of the American Revolution ("America Unfriends Great Britain"). So while the book holds no shortage of attitude and satire, it also imparts an impressive array of historical substance and even a degree of earnestness and patriotism, complete with an appendix on civic action for teenagers. PAMELA PAUL ONLINE A slide show of this week's illustrated books at nytimes.com/books.
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3 Up-The sweeping scope of Myers's free verse poems (HarperCollins, 2011) is captured beautifully and interpreted dramatically on this CD by a diverse cast of narrators. This eminently patriotic book celebrates free expression and attempts to paint with word pictures the depth and breadth of the varied American experience. Rarely are all ethnicities given voice in a treatise on American freedom, liberty, and values, but the panorama of people who built America is well represented here. In fact, the book alone, without the CD, falls flat with its oddly-proportioned, crowded murals in a sea of white space. It is only with the soaring music, stirring sound effects, and talented team of multicultural readers that this book's meaning and powerful purpose come to life. When a Native American voices Tecumseh's words to the accompaniment of reed flute and eagle flight, listeners understand their intent. From Jimi Hendrix's guitar riff to the sound of boxes of tea being dumped in Boston Harbor, meaning is enhanced. Not a young child's picture book, the complicated concepts, vocabulary, and mature images are best for older students. Charles R. Smith Jr.'s book, I Am America (Cartwheel, 2003), is a better fit for earlier grades. Annotated quotations and art notes provide helpful references, as do the author's and artist's prefaces. Useful for biography units or civics classes, the chorus of voices, music, and sounds tell the unique story of America and its people in 33 breathless minutes. Truly inspirational.-Lonna Pierce, MacArthur and Thomas Jefferson Elementary School, Binghamton, NY (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
(Picture book/poetry. 8 up) ]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
