Preaching to the Chickens: The Story of Young John Lewis

Jabari Asim

In his memoir, Rep. John Lewis describes how as a boy he loved his chickens. Asim expands those episodes into a lovely picture book that shows the farm on which a young John Lewis lived. There’s plowing and cotton planting, Sunday church and choir—and chickens: Lewis knew them by name and preached to them. They provided him with living examples of Scriptural truths. When they fought, he preached: “Blessed are the peacemakers.” According to the story, those lessons influenced the way he fought for civil rights. Beautiful watercolor illustrations bring rural Alabama to life. (Ages 5-8)

Freedom over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life by Ashley Bryan

Ashley Bryan

Inspired by a historical estate appraisal that included the names and dollar values of 11 slaves, Bryan imagines their lives. He shows the slaves as carpenters, cooks, seamstresses, and more, with skills that lead their masters to rent them out to others. Bryan also adds to the names personality, ambition, and dreams of which the masters know nothing. Woodcut-style illustrations give these names faces. We see Stephen, who “works at the Big House building cabins for the slaves, sheds for the cattle.” He loves Jane: “Secretly, Jane and I taught each other to read, helped by my hidden Bible.” (Ages 6-10)

Freedom in Congo Square

Carole Boston Weatherford

Slaves worked hard in New Orleans but got off a half-day on Sundays. That’s when they and free blacks would gather in Congo Square. They’d play African music, share news, dance, and celebrate. The book details the daily chores—baking bread or plucking hens—and counts down the days to Congo Square. “Mondays, there were hogs to slop, mules to train, and logs to chop. Slavery was no ways fair. Six more days to Congo Square.” The illustrations feature simple, Matisse-cutout-type figures against a plain ground. (Ages 4-8)

Grandmama’s Pride

Becky Birtha

It’s 1956 and two sisters travel with their mother down South to visit Grandmama. Their mother makes sure they sit at the back of the bus and eat a lunch brought from home. Sarah Marie notices other strange things: Her Grandmama never takes the bus into town, choosing to walk instead. But after she learns to read, Sarah Marie notices things like white and colored restroom signs—and the summer loses its pleasure. The book ends on a hopeful note: By the next summer, the laws had changed. They can sit and eat wherever they want. (Ages 4-8)

AFTERWORD

Publishers have recently released many fine picture books by African-American writers and illustrators. They draw attention to important events and underappreciated historical features. Kadir Nelson has illustrated books about the Underground Railroad, Negro league baseball, and Nelson Mandela. He’s also illustrated a portion of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Author Chris Barton and illustrator Don Tate’s Whoosh!: Lonnie Johnson’s Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions (Charlesbridge, 2016) offers an exuberant look at the resilient inventor of the Super Soaker squirt gun. Tate’s 2015 Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton (Peachtree, 2015) tells the true story of a slave who taught himself to read and earned money for his master by writing poems for college kids. As tensions between North and South increased, he lost the freedom to write—but after the Civil War he gained his freedom and moved west.