Myers, Walter Dean. Brown Angels An Album of Pictures and Verse. HarperCollins Publishers, 1993, p. 36.
Brief plot description:
The author begins by telling the reader where he got the pictures. Each of the poems is either written about the picture, by children he knew, or by the day. The poems that are in the book are “Friendship”, “Blossoms”, “Love That Boy”, “Zudie O, Zuide O”, “Prayer”, “They”, “Jolly, Jolly”, “Summer”, “Pretty Little Black Girl”, “Jeannie Had a Giggle”, and “Pride.” Each poem rhymes in some way and some of them use the element of imagery. The illustrations in this book are all photographs that show African American children. The photographs and imagery bring this book to life. For example, “Pretty Little Black Girl” describes four girls that are different skin color and do different things, or in “Jeannie Had a Giggle” the picture shows a girl that is all smiles.
Brief review:
I really enjoyed these poems and photographs. The photographs bring the poems to life and are just interesting to look at. I think that this book could be used in fourth through sixth grade. It could be used as a read aloud for the really early grades and an individual read for the older students. The poems could be used during Black History month, when discussing emotions of children, or when discussing children in general. It could also be used when teaching a poetry unit as examples of different types of poetry and how illustrations and poems can be tied together.
Genre label:
Reading level/interest level:
4th – 6th grade
Similar materials in style content, theme or characters:
Lives: Poems about Famous Americans by Lee Bennett Hopkins and Leslie Staub
Words with Wings: A Treasury of African-American Poetry and Art by Belinda Rochelle
Honey, I Love: And Other Love Poems by Eloise Greenfield
Awards:
Notable Children’s Books of 1994 (ALA)
1994 Notable Trade Books in the Language Arts (NCTE)
1994 Books for the Teen Age (NY Public Library)
Children’s Books of 1993 (Library of Congress)
No comments:
Post a Comment