Marie Bradby

This had the potential to be an outstanding book, but the author chose to be coy about the context and not reveal the name of the protagonist until the penultimate page. Even for grownups, it’s confusing. A lot of reviewers seem to think that Booker’s family (that’s a spoiler! What kind of biography is it where the subject’s name is a spoiler?!) is enslaved; a bit of research confirmed my impression that it’s set during Reconstruction. Again, that’s pretty basic information to leave out.

I’m 100 years closer in age to my grandchildren than Booker, and I have to supply context when I tell them about my childhood. If this book had been narrated by an elderly, reminiscent Booker who supplied necessary information about his background and perhaps his later accomplishments (at least to the extent of “I went to college and founded a college so other young Black people could get an education”), it would have been a far less confusing book and I would have kept it.… (mehr)

I really enjoyed this book for a few reasons. For one, I really enjoyed the author's voice. Bradby wrote with a lot of character and her writing was very enjoyable because her voice was very strong. For instance, the author wrote, "I'm from beans- green, lima, and pea-picked, strung, snapped and shelled into pans." In addition, the author also used African American vernacular dialect which also made the story more relatable. For instance, the author talked a lot about African American heritage and traditions and it was appropriate for her to use "informal dialect" in order to show how their family interacted and the importance of their heritage. Adding to that, the author also uses sentence fragments throughout the book. The author wrote, "Where families grew into a neighborhood as close as a knit sweater..." The sentence fragments worked well in this book and the writing was very effective. and intentional. The purpose of this book was to share African American heritage and family traditions and this book was very successful and I really enjoyed reading it.… (mehr)

First off, I liked this book for many reasons. The first reason being the illustrations. I thoroughly enjoyed how pleasing and detailed the illustrations were. In my opinion, the illustrations showed great emotion in the characters faces. You could see that Booker (main character) was very tired out and his emotions were portrayed very well in the illustrations. Secondly, I enjoyed the passion that the story was written with. Booker wants to learn how to read and with the use of language, the reader can feel and understand that passion. For instance, the story states, "After work, even though my shoulders still ache and my legs are stained with salt, I study my book. I stare at the marks and try to imagine their song.". I felt this quote when I read it. Being a nine-year old boy, working all day, and still staying up all night to learn to read is very inspiring. With that being said, I think that the main idea of this story is to never give up on what you are passionate about. Booker still does his daily routine of working very hard and still maintains his time to read because he feels so strongly about it. His determination was very true and I enjoyed reading about it.… (mehr)