A review by spellingbat
Strange Fruit by Gary Golio

3.0

It's always good to see a book about Billie Holiday, and this song addresses is a very important topic not often addressed in books for kids. The oil paintings are sometimes evocative of deep emotions, but are uneven in effectiveness. The smears and sometimes swirls of color echo the idea of jazz, but I can't tell if the same motivation is behind fact that Billie looks different (sometimes markedly) in all the pictures, and if they weren't gathered together in a book I'd never have said they were supposed to be the same person.

This book definitely focuses more on the song although it shares biographical details of Billie, too, including backmatter with more detail on her life as well as information about lynching and the meaning of the song.