Reviews
The creators' high-stepping testament to the enduring cultural influence of Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes (1901-1967) begins with the promise of a party: "a jam in Harlem to celebrate the word-making man." Rhythmic lines from Newbery Honoree Reynolds, making his picture book debut, aptly describe Hughes as "the best word maker around./ Could make the word MOTHER feel/ like real warm arms wrapped around you." In illustrations rendered with handmade stamps, Ezra Jack Keats Award Honorees the Pumphrey brothers apply stylized typography throughout, as on a page in which mother makes up the figure of a parent embracing a child. Melding celebratory text and kinetic, graphical art, the creators underscore the power of the subject's poetry to move and to inspire.
