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 “An American Story,” by Kwame Alexander, illus. Dare Coulter.
Hello, Poetry Friend
I wanted to read this book: It’s by Kwame Alexander, who wrote one of my favorite books, The Crossover.
I didn’t want to read this book: It tells the history of slavery in America.
The day I bought the book I received an email from my alma mater, Baylor University, about the groundbreaking for the Memorial to Enslaved Persons on campus. Here’s part of the press release, quoting Baylor President Linda A. Livingstone, Ph.D.:
“When Baylor was founded in 1845, chattel slavery was deeply woven into the cultural and economic fabric of the state of Texas. Our three primary founders—including our namesake Judge Baylor—were both religious leaders and slaveholders. We believe the incompatibility of Baylor’s Christian mission and its roots in chattel salvery requires a collective reckoning with this legacy, and the additional context around Judge Baylor’s statue will connect his story to the enslaved persons being recognized through the Memorial.”
Reckoning. Something hard, something I wish we didn’t have to do. The very thing Alexander and Coulter are doing in An American Story. As much as I adore Alexander’s words, it’s Coulter’s art that carries this story, that helps us reckon.
Coulter did not use just one art medium — he used acrylic, spray paint, graphite, ink, charcoal, and two kinds of sculpture. Because how do you tell this American story? As the students in the classroom say, “That’s sad. Really, really sad, Ms. Simmons.”
Ms. Simmons says,
“I don’t think I can continue.
It’s just too painful.
I shouldn’t have read this
to you. I’m so sorry, children.”
Reckoning is hard. Reckoning is necessary.
The first image is of the moon, the beautiful full moon in the starry, cloudy heavens. Moon overlooking the ocean shoreline, where two women dance, somewhere in Africa. The last image is the sun, as if we are inside its warmth and glory. We are invited, in reading this book, to join the people of the past, like the Gullah Geechee woman, and the people of the present, like the girl in the classoom,
“by holding
history
in one hand
and clenching
hope
in the other.”
The book bears witness to horrors and to love. What does it say about me that the two lines which wreck me most are these: “And no reading ALLOWED. / And no reading ALOUD.”
I bear witness by reading Black stories. Some are a joy to read, like There Was a Party for Langston. Some are poignant, like Big. This month I also read Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing, which follows a contemporary Black family in Mississippi still living in the aftermath of slavery’s horror.
“Sorrow is food swallowed too quickly, caught in the throat, making it nearly impossible to breath,” Ward writes.
I read Ward. Morrison. Jemisin. Butler. Walker. Thomas. Woodson. Alexander.
On the title page, the words are broken. They read: AN AMERI CAN STORY. The word ameri means divine ruler. The word can, well, we all know what it means. Our flag has to hold both.
I can’t stop looking at that flag, pictured on the cover with a pair of Black hands. I believe they are sewing on a star.
“An American Story” won the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award.
Caldecott Journaling
The inspiration for this book was a conversation Alexander had with his daughter’s fourth-grade teacher, after he realized how difficult it was for her to teach the truth about slavery. The illustrations in the classroom seem to reflect this tension. The rest of the book is filled with color — the classroom scenes are charcoal on yellow. Notice how the color yellow shifts throughout those depictions.
What books do you recommend for reckoning with America’s history with slavery? For adults? For children?
Often the pictures in this book are paired: enslaved boy next to free boy, boy with man, running with catching, then with now. Pick one of the pairs and explore what Coulter is expressing through the pairing.
What illustration in the book do you need to write about?
May your write the truth that needs to be written.
Megan
This catches in my throat. I need to do more reading on this topic. Powerful and sorrowful.
I'm so glad you wrote about this book, Megan, and thankful for all the things you say here. Indeed, we bear witness by what we read--and by reading it "aloud," like you're doing it here. Stunning book.