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A review by mjfmjfmjf
Harlem by Walter Dean Myers
4.0
I've read a lot of picture books in the last year. And many are the same-ish. They have the same target audience, parents reading to their small children. And some are quite different - they are picture books but not exactly books for small children. And just being different doesn't make a book good.
This book is different and good. It is a poem, which for me usually means irritating unbearable dreck, but in this case quite readable. It has a sophisticated eye in its art and its words. It aims to capture an experience and a time of a place. It manages to pull you in, whether you are the target or not. For me, one page's reference to stick-ball and ring-a-levio brought me back to childhood in suburban Northern New Jersey. It ended up feeling inclusive, nostalgic.
But definitely this is one for an odd target, an older child who reads picture books.
This book is different and good. It is a poem, which for me usually means irritating unbearable dreck, but in this case quite readable. It has a sophisticated eye in its art and its words. It aims to capture an experience and a time of a place. It manages to pull you in, whether you are the target or not. For me, one page's reference to stick-ball and ring-a-levio brought me back to childhood in suburban Northern New Jersey. It ended up feeling inclusive, nostalgic.
But definitely this is one for an odd target, an older child who reads picture books.