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Summary
Summary
The photographs of Walker Evans tell stories of ordinary people living in America in the extraordinary time of the Great Depression. Cynthia Rylant's poetry about the photographs offers a new voice in the telling, celebrating the beauty of life lived in extreme circumstances.
Author Notes
Cynthia Rylant was born on June 6, 1954 in Hopewell, Virginia. She attended and received degrees at Morris Harvey College, Marshall University, and Kent State University.
Rylant worked as an English professor and at the children's department of a public library, where she first discovered her love of children's literature.
She has written more than 100 children's books in English and Spanish, including works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Her novel Missing May won the 1993 Newbery Medal and A Fine White Dust was a 1987 Newbery Honor book. Rylant wrote A Kindness, Soda Jerk, and A Couple of Kooks and Other Stories, which were named as Best Book for Young Adults. When I was Young in the Mountains and The Relatives Came won the Caldecott Award.
She has many popular picture books series, including Henry and Mudge, Mr. Putter and Tabby and High-Rise Private Eyes. (Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up-Nearly 60 years ago, Walker Evans and James Agee documented the lives of poor Southern sharecroppers. Their efforts resulted in a devastating, legendary account of the Depression, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Here, Rylant pairs Evans's photographs with 29 short, lyrical poems. Almost of necessity, her subject matter concerns survival. ``House,'' ``Bed,'' ``Rocker,'' ``Utensils,'' and ``Grave'' evoke an existence stripped of all but the essential. The poet shows how seemingly inconsequential things-a window box filled with plants, a few prized possessions displayed on a mantel-can spell the difference between hope and despair. Sly humor surfaces as well. Rylant's spare, conversational style matches the spirit of the pictures; her respect for the people whose way of life Evans has captured shines through. Powerful as the words are, the photographs steal the show. They pull viewers back again and again, deepening current notions of pride and endurance. Beautifully designed, the volume is printed on high-quality glossy paper. Each black-and-white, full-page photo is faced by a strategically positioned poem on the opposite page; silver endpapers add a luxuriant touch. Not a comfortable book, Something Permanent will delight and disturb readers.-Ellen D. Warwick, Winchester Public Library, MA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
As in Rylant's Soda Jerk , the subjects of this extraordinary and elegantly designed volume are ordinary moments in the lives of ordinary people. Rylant, responding to Evans's famous photographs of America during the Great Depression, pens spare, gem-like poems that tell stories--of a couple hitching a ride to the city, of a barber proud of his shop. Almost devoid of obviously figurative language, the poems are an expressive complement to the poignant images in Evans's ( Let Us Now Praise Famous Men ) stark photographs. Even when the camera focuses on an inanimate object, the poems hone in on the human heart. A photograph of a crooked mantel inspires a description of a woman who ``knew about beauty and understood it.'' A picture of two empty iron beds speak to Rylant of a couple who ``would turn toward each other, and, / nestled in the warm breathing / of their other babies, / ease their weary minds / with the sex / they knew would likely make them / poorer / and / richer / all the same time.'' For the most part, the text deals with experiences and attitudes beyond the understanding of those at the younger end of the target audience, but older readers will respond to the book's eloquent and haunting images of loss, hope and love. Ages 10-up. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Rylant has written twenty-nine poems to accompany Evans's famous Depression-era photographs. The poems, spare and limpid, capture the quiet desperation as well as the courage of the time. However, they are mostly adult in approach and appeal, and the lavish bookmaking does not match the starkness and simplicity of the photographs. From HORN BOOK 1994, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Classic photos taken under the auspices of the Farm Security Administration ""to document the country during the Great Depression"" are matched with succinct poems that awaken the imagination to real lives behind b&w images that, more often than not, are unpeopled. ""And when the children would come in/from working the fields,/their bellies aching with hunger,"" begins ""Utensils,"" which faces a spare photo of a few forks and spoons hung on a rough wall. Two gaunt men are hanging around a bleak building: ""So what are you gonna do/while you're waiting for/a little work,/'cept...swap some stories./Hell, story's the only thing that's free in this world."" Or a window box brims with life: ""And he thought that if he could/just get those plants up...he might be able/to smile at his kids,/make love to his wife...."" Suggesting whole stories but never insisting, Rylant's lean, evocative verse opens windows of meaning into these quietly eloquent scenes. Across the decades, a fine collaboration. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
There's nothing childish about the stark, simple black-and-white photographs that Walker Evans captured with his camera. In this book, his photos of southern life during the Depression are beautifully matched with strong, sturdy poems by Appalachian writer Cynthia Rylant.