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A review by jecoats
Little Black Boy: Oh, the Things You Will Do! by Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Larry C. Fields III
5.0
Little Black Boy: Oh, the Things You Will Do! was sitting on a shelf of new titles when I visited my library yesterday, and after paging through it and realizing it was a poetry picturebook, I decided to give it a read as one of my poetry trade books. Although it was not recommended to me by anyone (can I argue the library itself made the recommendation?) and has not won any awards (yet), I decided to write my review about it as I felt it was a far better, more satisfying picturebook than Poem in My Pocket, which has won an award.
The book is made up of a series of loosely connected "vignettes" that depict a young Black boy learning to swim, his love of aquatic wildlife, and his desire to become a marine biologist. All of this is told mainly through the imagery - the reader has to make many inferences throughout the narrative to piece together the “story”. The poetry, which is usually a single couplet per page, isn't narrating the illustrations. Instead, the poetry is used to communicate to Black children that they are full of insight and imagination, and that they will go far in this world - all they have to do is try.
There is a real beauty to this picturebook I thoroughly enjoyed, from the encouraging voice of the narrator to the rich and vivid illustrations. The words and pictures may not align, but they work in tandem to create a rewarding story that tells children that there is no obstacle to great or endeavor to large to overcome. The illustrations by Paul Davey are straightforward and well drawn. There is a realism to his art that I think works well with the subject matter. If the illustrations were more cartoonish or abstract, it might be distracting for the reader, taking some focus away from the book’s themes. I also like how there is not a speck of white space on the page. It’s visually striking to see every inch of the page taken up with color, but it actually makes the images (and book as whole) feel physically larger than they really are, which I think helps to underscore the overall theme of the narrative.
As a work of poetry, Kirby Howell-Baptiste and Larry C. Fields III have created a piece of literature that meets a lot of the criteria from Children’s Books in Children’s Hands. It certainly possesses the “positive spirit” mentioned on page 162. It is also both thoughtful in its messaging and accessible to most readers (p. 143), even readers who may not enjoy or comprehend poetry. And Little Black Boy has a great rhythm and rhyme scheme that, while simple in its construction, makes reading the book aloud a true pleasure.
Howell-Baptiste, Fields, and Davey have crafted a wonderfully simple picturebook that is almost completely a mirror. While it may not reflect a purely authentic representation of the culture of Black students, it does offer them characters that will resemble them - especially boys. Plus, I think that an accurate representation of culture is not the intent. In my opinion, the picturebook is meant to offer encouragement to Black boys - to lift them up in such a way that will enable their dreams to take shape. More than anything, I think this book was written to inspire hope in Black boys that despite what they may see or hear, they are capable of anything.
The book is made up of a series of loosely connected "vignettes" that depict a young Black boy learning to swim, his love of aquatic wildlife, and his desire to become a marine biologist. All of this is told mainly through the imagery - the reader has to make many inferences throughout the narrative to piece together the “story”. The poetry, which is usually a single couplet per page, isn't narrating the illustrations. Instead, the poetry is used to communicate to Black children that they are full of insight and imagination, and that they will go far in this world - all they have to do is try.
There is a real beauty to this picturebook I thoroughly enjoyed, from the encouraging voice of the narrator to the rich and vivid illustrations. The words and pictures may not align, but they work in tandem to create a rewarding story that tells children that there is no obstacle to great or endeavor to large to overcome. The illustrations by Paul Davey are straightforward and well drawn. There is a realism to his art that I think works well with the subject matter. If the illustrations were more cartoonish or abstract, it might be distracting for the reader, taking some focus away from the book’s themes. I also like how there is not a speck of white space on the page. It’s visually striking to see every inch of the page taken up with color, but it actually makes the images (and book as whole) feel physically larger than they really are, which I think helps to underscore the overall theme of the narrative.
As a work of poetry, Kirby Howell-Baptiste and Larry C. Fields III have created a piece of literature that meets a lot of the criteria from Children’s Books in Children’s Hands. It certainly possesses the “positive spirit” mentioned on page 162. It is also both thoughtful in its messaging and accessible to most readers (p. 143), even readers who may not enjoy or comprehend poetry. And Little Black Boy has a great rhythm and rhyme scheme that, while simple in its construction, makes reading the book aloud a true pleasure.
Howell-Baptiste, Fields, and Davey have crafted a wonderfully simple picturebook that is almost completely a mirror. While it may not reflect a purely authentic representation of the culture of Black students, it does offer them characters that will resemble them - especially boys. Plus, I think that an accurate representation of culture is not the intent. In my opinion, the picturebook is meant to offer encouragement to Black boys - to lift them up in such a way that will enable their dreams to take shape. More than anything, I think this book was written to inspire hope in Black boys that despite what they may see or hear, they are capable of anything.