Deb Nance
The Real Wizard of Oz is the story of the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum. He was always trying a new, outlandish business venture—a store full of exotic knick-knacks in the 1890 South Dakota...a touring acting company...an early film production company—and his businesses always failed. Then he created The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and a franchise was born.
Quotes from the book:
“It would become a painful truth that when Baum stopped trying so hard, success came to him.”
“He (Baum) couldn't have written such a wise story so full of complex ideas as well as simple ones if he hadn't suffered and strived for so many years...His experiences as a child and as a man, his extensive reading through which he'd absorbed the oldest archetypes from folktales, had all jumbled together in his mind to make a brilliant cocktail, which surfaced intuitively as this brilliant, hyperreal story.”
“In the middle of writing a story, Baum sometimes fell into black moods. He would complain to Maud that ‘my characters just won't do what I want them to.' He learned that in order to finish a story, he had to let go and stop trying to force his characters to obey him; if he just let them do as they pleased, they would find their story themselves.”
I still remember reading All-of-a-Kind Family when I was a little girl. These children live in a big city, not a little town like me, I thought. The family lives in an apartment, not a house like everyone I knew did. The family is Jewish with different traditions than I had experienced. It is one of those books that opened my eyes to the fact that people had many different ways of living in the world.
This book is the story of the author of All-of-a-Kind Family, Sydney Taylor. It tells the story of the bold girl, Sarah Brenner, who shared stories of her life as part of an immigrant family in New York City, with a focus on her family's Jewish traditions.
I seem to be on an Oliver Jeffers reading run right now, and this is my latest in the run. The anticipated audience this time is not (just) kids, but also grownups. I read this as an ebook (very difficult to read his essay at the back of the book in tiny, tiny print) but I'd like to read it again as a real book. But most of all, I want to begin again. Every day.
The Tulsa Race Massacre occurred in 1921 in the highly affluent suburb of Tulsa, Greenwood. A black teen was accused by a white elevator operator of assault, and the teen was jailed. A mob came to try to lynch the boy, but the sheriff refused to release him. A white mob sought vengeance that night by burning down homes, and looting and destroying businesses in Greenwood. Up to three hundred black people may have been killed, and 8,000 black people were left homeless. No charges were ever drawn up against the white perpetrators; instead, the incident was hushed up.
This is a story that shares the beauty and prosperity of Greenwood before the massacre as well as the horror of the incident itself.
Little Mazie is tired of everyone telling her no. To make her feel better, her dad suggests they celebrate Juneteenth, a day when Mazie's great-great-great-grandpa was told yes, the day the Emancipation Proclamation was read aloud in Galveston, Texas. Her dad shares the story of that day with his daughter.
I love the gorgeous illustrations by Floyd Cooper.
P. S. In June of 2023, a friend and I visited the mural “Absolute Equality” and the historical plaque at the site in Galveston where Juneteenth was announced.
A picture book is generally a taste; this picture book is a gourmet meal.
Rio Cortez writes a poem sharing the sadnesses as well as the celebrations of black history for each letter of the alphabet. I was amazed at how much Cortez packed into a picture book. She covers the a wide range of people and places and events and movements and ideals. The pictures are delightful, too.
Angela Joy riffs on the word “Black...“
“Black is molasses from tall sugarcane.Black is soft-singing,‘Hush now, don't explain.'”
...as a color...
“Black is a crayon, tangled in a box.Black is a feather on white winter snow.Black is the dirt where sunflowers grow.My color is black.”
...as a culture...
“Black is the heart of a candle and flame.Black is the power of movement in pain.”
...now...
“Black are the braids in my best friend's hair.Black are the bottoms of summertime feet.”
...in the past...
“Black is the color of ink staining page.Black is the mask that shelters his rage.”
...in the future...
“Black are the branches that carry my name:weaving, wrapping, lifting,laughing, hoping, graphing, quiet,strong.”
...with all the beautiful and hopeful promises of that word.
Black is a rainbow color.
Patricia C. McKissack describes what it was like for her as a young black girl to travel around the city of Nashville during the 1950s in which Jim Crow laws mandated separate schools and bathrooms and restaurants and even benches for black people. Happily, young ‘Tricia Ann is on her way to “someplace special,” a place where these laws are not in place—the public library.
John Lewis wanted to be a preacher when he grew up, and he started his career with the only audience available to him as a child, his chickens. He preaches, and the chickens listen. When one of his chickens falls into the well, the boy saves her, and attributes her rescue to another of God's miracles. John Lewis even baptizes the chickens.
All of the skills Lewis will use in adulthood in his work as a preacher, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and one of the leaders of the March on Washington and the demonstration on the Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.
Here are forty leaders in history, all women, all black, with stories of courage and persistence, as they venture into positions as doctors, scientists, mathematicians, poets, political leaders, athletes, college students, writers, leading the ways for thousands of other black women to follow. The stories are simply told, but the author tells just enough to spark interest into pursuing more research into these lives. Inspiring.
Words by Kwame Alexander and pictures by Kadir Nelson combine to form a perfect tribute to the courageous struggles of black Americans, through time, for justice, for equality, for a good life. Children and adults alike are left deeply moved after reading this powerful story of strength and persistence and endurance in the face of decades of torment and hatred and violence. This is a book that will be read and reread and shared again and again.
Author Carole Boston Weatherford adapts the words of the classic spiritual to emphasize the many black figures of the past who have used prayer to cope with horrendous situations, including enslaved people, Nat Turner, soldiers of the American Civil War, the people of the Great Migration, the Tuskegee Airmen, black musicians, Ruby Bridges, Martin Luther King Jr., black athletes, Colin Kaepernick, and the members of the Black Lives Matter movement.
I want to sing this one, it's so good. It's a beautiful powerful song of a picture book, celebrating the wonder of a child, filled with spirit and strength and opportunity.
“I am one eye open, one eye closed,
peeking through a microscope,
gazing through a telescope,
checking out the spaces
around me
and plotting out those far-off places
I have yet to go—but will.”
Wow. Fabulous.
Stacey loves words, and she is delighted when her teacher chooses her to participate in the spelling bee. Then she learns who she is up against—Jake, who bullies others.
A story of doing the right thing and perseverance, based on an incident from the childhood of activist and former Georgia representative Stacey Abrams.
What a fun book. With panel drawings and illustrated recipes, Lucy Knisley tells the story of the big events of her life through the stories of the food she ate and cooked at the time. It's a memoir...it's a cookbook...it's a graphic novel; it's all three and it's delightful.
I read it one afternoon and then turned back to page one and read it all over again. And then took a few pictures of my favorite parts.
You will like it, too.
Ruby Bridges was chosen to be one of the first black children to attend a white school. Ruby Bridges was only six years old in 1960 when she was escorted by four National Guardsmen to class every day for her first year of school in New Orleans. Bridges tells the story of that time and offers encouragement to all of us to take action to making the world a better place for all people.
Lizzie and her brother Paul go to school for the first time after slavery for their parents is ended. It's an incredible experience for the two and for the others who join them. But, though slavery has ended, the obstacles to receiving an education and finding the freedom that comes with that education continue.
I've never thought about what it must have been like for people who are struggling to make new lives for themselves after slavery has been abolished. This story takes you right into the day-to-day problems people faced from those who didn't want all to get an education, those who didn't want all to be free.
Charles R. Smith Jr. uses photographs to celebrate the people in poet Langston Hughes' brilliant but simple poem, My People. The reader vividly sees the beauty of the night in the faces of the people. The reader vividly sees the stars in the eyes of the people. The reader vividly sees the sun in the souls of the people.
A beautiful celebration.