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jaij7's review against another edition
4.0
Kadir Nelson is my favorite illustrator and this book does not disappoint. He is so talented.
beths0103's review against another edition
5.0
Based on Shange's poem "Mood Indigo", Ellington Was Not a Street is a gorgeous picture book full of opportunities for students to make inferences and build background knowledge.
Scaffolding could be built with older students by sharing just the poem first, then showing them the poem with Kadir Nelson's stunning illustrations, and finally, reading the author's note at the end which lists and explains all of the men mentioned in the poem.
The meaning of "Mood Indigo" and even the picture book itself won't completely make sense without background into who the men were that are mentioned in the poem.
Scaffolding could be built with older students by sharing just the poem first, then showing them the poem with Kadir Nelson's stunning illustrations, and finally, reading the author's note at the end which lists and explains all of the men mentioned in the poem.
The meaning of "Mood Indigo" and even the picture book itself won't completely make sense without background into who the men were that are mentioned in the poem.
alfajirikali's review against another edition
3.0
We liked this one, the illustrations were wonderful. Athena didn't get the full impact of the book though. Meant for a crowd a little older, I think.
arielrichardson's review against another edition
5.0
“it hasn’t always been this way/ ellington was not a street/ robeson no mere memory/ dubois walked up my father’s stairs/ hummed some tune over me/ sleeping in the company of men/ who changed the world…”
So begins ellington was not a street, the true story of Shange’s experiences growing up surrounded by great African American leaders, thinkers, musicians and boxers- men who “changed the world.” Winner of the Coretta Scott King Award in 2005, this book brings these great men and their families to life, reminding us of their contributions, and reminding us that they are so much more than street names. The rhythm and brevity of the text make it a great picture book for younger children. The nine biographies featured at the end of the book mean that it is also engaging for older readers. Kadir Nelson's beautifully rendered illustrations make this book impossible to resist.
So begins ellington was not a street, the true story of Shange’s experiences growing up surrounded by great African American leaders, thinkers, musicians and boxers- men who “changed the world.” Winner of the Coretta Scott King Award in 2005, this book brings these great men and their families to life, reminding us of their contributions, and reminding us that they are so much more than street names. The rhythm and brevity of the text make it a great picture book for younger children. The nine biographies featured at the end of the book mean that it is also engaging for older readers. Kadir Nelson's beautifully rendered illustrations make this book impossible to resist.
kwbat12's review against another edition
4.0
Not enough words, I think, but I liked that it could create a conversation about the people who are in the story and why they are important. She mentions several important people and puts them in a different context.
upstatelibrarygal's review against another edition
5.0
Great story that is actually non-fiction, an author's recollection of the many memorable people that she met when she was a child. Great introduction to some illustrious African-Americans. At the end of the book the author includes two pages that describe each of the personalities that she encounters in the story. Beautiful poetry and illustrations.
booksbythecup's review against another edition
5.0
Read this picture book with niece and nephew after school. Loved it.
blackandbookish's review against another edition
4.0
This book felt like being a fly on the wall of a gathering. You weren't invited, but they would never turn you away. Shange's work is powerful and heavy. I love the way she reminds us that the great men of Black History where indeed men. They lived their lives just like the rest of us.
leslie_d's review against another edition
5.0
The narrative of Ellington Was Not a Street comes from Ntozake Shange’s poem “Mood Indigo” (from A Daughter’s Geography, 1983). The poem, excerpted for the picture book, is a reflection of and tribute to a legacy of African American innovator, a “company of men” “who changed the world.” It is a personal poem of a young Shange (nee Paulette Williams) whose home nurtured and was nurtured by this company of men.
Only such gorgeously wrought poem could withstand the company of Kadir Nelson’s illustrations. The images themselves (as Sean, an Artist, breathed “precise”) have a precision a poet, too, would recognize.
You may want to read with some kind of liquid precision the first time through, caught in a rhythm of the words, but plan the time to linger again and again on an image, a deeply impactful moment Shange and Nelson have crafted. It took me a stretch of time to pull away from the cover, then from the portrait facing the title page (‘piano’ image above). I was drawn to circle
our house was filled with all kinda folks
our windows were not cement or steel
our doors opened like our daddy’s arms
held us safe & loved
As the narrative acknowledges the simultaneity of then and now, the illustrations move back and forth in time between the streetscape whether the narrator reminisces and her childhood home. Her home is quiet, interior, full of warm patterns. The street is busy with a different sort of liveliness, other textures that are met with rain. The narrator holds a red umbrella amongst the institutionalized black, a “Don’t Walk” sign flashing at the intersection.
Our narrator, she is small in the presence of the company, her and her brother, and she is small in this house (another of her surroundings), but she is without question present, never forgotten, and cherished (e.g. a man’s suit jacket draped over her as a blanket as she sleeps on the couch).
The images are real, not abstracted. The poem is hardly abstract, but an illustrator could have reinterpreted the narrative into something more ephemeral. The detail in the setting, the verisimilitude of the portrait, the inclusion of a group sitting for a ‘photograph,’ these establish the very real and tangible existence of the life/lives represented.
Ellington Was Not a Street includes two pages of biographies using excerpted images from the narrative, “More About a Few of the Men ‘Who Changed the World’:” (I will list them as the book does) : Paul Robeson, William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) DuBois, Ray Barretto, Earlington Carl “Sonny Til” Tilghman, John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, Virgil “Honey Bear” Akins, The Clovers.
The endpage at the close shares narrative the in its stanzaic form of “Mood Indigo.” Of course “Mood Indigo” is also a musical composition by Duke Ellington, so exquisitely observed on the vinyl held by our narrator on the cover: the record, an RCA Victor special of Mood Indigo by Duke Ellington and his famous orchestra. I have a YouTube option, undoubtedly a lesser quality, if you are interested.
Do I really have to say it? You really must find a copy of Ellington Was Not a Street.
L (omphaloskepsis)
http://contemplatrix.wordpress.com/2014/06/30/book-a-legacy-a-man-a-company-of-men-and-ntozake-shange/
Only such gorgeously wrought poem could withstand the company of Kadir Nelson’s illustrations. The images themselves (as Sean, an Artist, breathed “precise”) have a precision a poet, too, would recognize.
You may want to read with some kind of liquid precision the first time through, caught in a rhythm of the words, but plan the time to linger again and again on an image, a deeply impactful moment Shange and Nelson have crafted. It took me a stretch of time to pull away from the cover, then from the portrait facing the title page (‘piano’ image above). I was drawn to circle
our house was filled with all kinda folks
our windows were not cement or steel
our doors opened like our daddy’s arms
held us safe & loved
As the narrative acknowledges the simultaneity of then and now, the illustrations move back and forth in time between the streetscape whether the narrator reminisces and her childhood home. Her home is quiet, interior, full of warm patterns. The street is busy with a different sort of liveliness, other textures that are met with rain. The narrator holds a red umbrella amongst the institutionalized black, a “Don’t Walk” sign flashing at the intersection.
Our narrator, she is small in the presence of the company, her and her brother, and she is small in this house (another of her surroundings), but she is without question present, never forgotten, and cherished (e.g. a man’s suit jacket draped over her as a blanket as she sleeps on the couch).
The images are real, not abstracted. The poem is hardly abstract, but an illustrator could have reinterpreted the narrative into something more ephemeral. The detail in the setting, the verisimilitude of the portrait, the inclusion of a group sitting for a ‘photograph,’ these establish the very real and tangible existence of the life/lives represented.
Ellington Was Not a Street includes two pages of biographies using excerpted images from the narrative, “More About a Few of the Men ‘Who Changed the World’:” (I will list them as the book does) : Paul Robeson, William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) DuBois, Ray Barretto, Earlington Carl “Sonny Til” Tilghman, John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, Virgil “Honey Bear” Akins, The Clovers.
The endpage at the close shares narrative the in its stanzaic form of “Mood Indigo.” Of course “Mood Indigo” is also a musical composition by Duke Ellington, so exquisitely observed on the vinyl held by our narrator on the cover: the record, an RCA Victor special of Mood Indigo by Duke Ellington and his famous orchestra. I have a YouTube option, undoubtedly a lesser quality, if you are interested.
Do I really have to say it? You really must find a copy of Ellington Was Not a Street.
L (omphaloskepsis)
http://contemplatrix.wordpress.com/2014/06/30/book-a-legacy-a-man-a-company-of-men-and-ntozake-shange/