A review by librovermo
Illustrated Black History: Honoring the Iconic and the Unseen by George McCalman

5.0

Ever since I learned about Claudette Colvin (thanks, Drunk History), I’ve been interested in learning more about the people behind the scenes of history. Unfortunately, too many of those people belong to marginalized communities. We all know America (and, I mean, a lot of the world) loves to whitewash its history and it’s nice to see books like this that seek to correct that.

I learned… A LOT about Black people who made a significant contributions to our society and culture and have gone unrecognized for far too long. There were a few people who really stood out to me, and among them was Augusta Braxton Baker, who, in 1934, was the first person to receive a bachelors degree in library science. She worked at the New York Public Library and worked to remove books with harmful stereotypes about Black people from the children’s library. She also made sure there was accurate representation in books for Black children. She went on to consult for Sesame Street and someone even wrote a book (called My Dog Rinty) in which she was a character. There are bigger stories in the book, but you will also find stories like Baker’s. Her work might seem small compared to the famous Black people everyone has heard of, like Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr., but it was so important and it touched so many lives.

The art is beautiful. I love that George McCalman used different mediums and that each portrait was heavily influenced by his knowledge of the person he was drawing/painting/etc. It’s obvious that he put great care into creating a portrait for each person that was uniquely theirs. 

This would be a really great book to have around to pick up and flip through here and there. The bio on each person is short enough that you could turn to a random page, admire the art, learn something, repeat. That sounds fun. Maybe I’ll buy a copy!