Status
Available
Publication
Wordsong (2007), Edition: Illustrated, 40 pages
Library's review
Exquisitely understated design lends visual potency to a searing poetic evocation of the Birmingham church bombing of 1963. The unnamed fictional narrator relates the events of “[t]he year I turned ten,” this refrain introducing such domestic commonplaces as her first sip of coffee and
-Kirkus Review
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“doz[ing] on Mama’s shoulder” at church. She juxtaposes these against the momentous events of the year: the Children’s March in Birmingham for which the narrator missed school, the March on Washington and the mass meetings at church that she found so soporific. The same matter-of-fact tone continues to relate what happened “[t]he day I turned ten:” “10:22 a.m. The clock stopped, and Jesus’ face / Was blown out of the only stained-glass window / Left standing. . . . ” Documentary gray dominates the palette, the only color angry streaks of red that evoke shattered window frames. The poems appear on recto accompanied by images of childhood—patent-leather shoes, pencils, bobby socks—while full-bleed archival photographs face them on verso. It’s a gorgeous memorial to the four killed on that horrible day, and to the thousands of children who braved violence to help change the world. (Poetry. 10-14)-Kirkus Review
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Awards
Cardinal Cup (Winner — 2008)
Rhode Island Children's Book Award (Nominee — 2009)
Jane Addams Children's Book Award (Honor Book — 2008)
Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award (Winner — 2008)
Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry (Honor Book — 2008)
Language
Original language
English
ISBN
1590784405 / 9781590784402