There Was a Party for Langston: (Caldecott Honor & Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor)

Reynolds and the Pumphrey brothers take readers on a dazzling journey through Langston Hughes’ legacy.

“There was a party for Langston at the library. / A jam in Harlem to celebrate the word-making man— // Langston, the king of letters.” And what a party! When Langston writes, words move,

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they collide, they big bang into the very atoms of connection. On shelves in the background, fellow Black writers and poets peer out from the spines of their books, looking on in delight as Langston’s “word-children” Maya Angelou and Amiri Baraka whirl with joy and inspiration, their own word-making mastery a credit to Langston’s legacy. Inspired by a joyous photo of Angelou and Baraka snapped in 1991 at the opening of the Langston Hughes Auditorium at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Reynolds sets a syncopated pace with his debut picture book, delivering not only a celebratory dance of a biography, but a primer in Hughes’ own jazz poetry. Not missing a beat and laying down one all their own, the Pumphrey brothers’ illustrations incorporate verses from Hughes’ poems and other words he set into motion to create a thrumming visual landscape where meaning takes literal flight. This book demonstrates that Hughes’ work is the epitome of what words can be. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A bar set stratospherically high and cleared with room to spare. (Informational picture book. 3-8)

-Kirkus Review

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