The Art & The Story, pt 3
"There Was a Party for Langston, King O'Letters" by Jason Reynolds, illus. Jerome Pumphrey and Jarrett Pumphrey
Callie Feyen, at Tell Me A Story That’s True, are writing this month about books considered for the 2024 Caldecott Medal. We continue with “There Was a Party for Langston, King O’Letters,” by Jason Reynolds, illustrated by Jerome Pumphrey and Jarrett Pumphrey.
Hello, Poetry Friend
Author Jason Reynolds writes that There Was a Party for Langston was inspired by a photograph of Maya Angelou and Amiri Baraka dancing at the Schomburg Center for the gala opening of the Langston Hughes Auditorium, in February 1991. On the page in which illustrators Jerome Pumphrey and his brother Jarrett Pumphrey recreate the photograph in their own style, the text on the page speaks of Langston Hughes:
“The man who wrote Maya and Amiri into the world.”
We who write do not write ourselves into the world — we are written into it by those who wrote before.
In addition to Maya and Amiri, the book gives us the portraits of sixteen Black authors and poets, who lean out of their books on the shelves of the library to join the party. Because at a party for a “word maker,” the people “boogie boogie wiggling wild.”
I turned page after joy-filled page, and I thought about the 66th Grammy Awards a few nights ago, when Tracy Chapman seemed to apparate right onto the stage to sing her song “Fast Car” with country music star Luke Combs, who has released his own version. It’s a song about longing to belong.
Chapman first sang it at the Grammys in 1991, when she won Best Female Pop vocalist. The other night she was back, wearing her trademark black, her hair now grey, singing and picking her guitar and smiling.
And Taylor Swift was standing and singing along from the audience, because she couldn’t not join in. And Michael Trotter Junior was standing too, pumping his fist along to the words, “I, I …”
We all want to be someone, be someone.
We can’t do it alone. We need books. We need libraries. We need dance parties. We need poets who play with words — like Chapman, like Hughes.
“But Langston, the brave word maker knew letters were better together, turned them into laughter."
Like Big, this book uses words as art — words from Hughes’ poems. The words are bright, and they are Black. They bring joy not only to the dancing people at the party, but also to the baker, the porter, the farmer, the girl, the teacher, the nurse.
One picture turns Hughes’ “Mother to Son” into an illustration, with the word Mother written in yellow into the form of a mother, holding a boy, and the words To Son spill across the floor, a white shadow. It’s a poem I memorized in May 2022. It’s a poem I don’t wholly feel I have a right to, as a white woman. But it reminds me of someone — the same someone I think of when I hear “Fast Car.”
Thank you, Tracy Chapman. Thank you, Langston Hughes. For writing “wake up stories and rise-and-shine rhymes ‘for all the dreams we’ve dreamed.’” (That last phrase is from Hughes’ “Let America Be America Again.”
“There Was a Party for Langston” won the Caldecott Honor award and is a Coretta Scott King Honor book.
Caldecott Journaling
I love it when picture books use the inside front and back covers to add art. The front spread is the sixteen Black authors and poets I mentioned earlier. There are two I have not yet read: Ashley Bryan and Alice Dunbar Nelson. Who is new to you? Put them on your library list!
The spread on the back inside cover shows twelve collections by Langston Hughes. I have only read individual Hughes poems, no collections. Shame on me. Again, to the library!
The author writes that “Amiri could make the word BLACK sound like it could be red.” The following page also illustrates Black as brown and Black as gold. What color would you choose for Black as … ?
Buy the book just for the illustration of Maya Angelou’s “Woman Work.” Trust me.
For a book that is ostensibly a picture book biography, Langston Hughes’ story only takes up half the pages. Because the story is not only about him, but also about his legacy. If a picture book biography were to be written about you, what would the last half — your artistic legacy — depict?
Happy poeming!
Megan
I love part in the story when Maya finds the word "phenomenal" because of Langston's words.
I also, am grateful for these wake-up (and dance) stories.
What a wonderful review/response! I just read the book last week, and it is wonder-filled jubilation. Soon I'm going to do a reading and writeup on my Substack of how the children's section is a great place to find poetry.