Customer Reviews

Ashley Bryan's ABC of African American Poetry

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We love this book and are purchasing a second copy so we can cut out the images and frame them. Ashley Bryan is a master of art! Bryan uses only portions of poems by wonderful poets, the stanzas chosen match the images perfectly and make the reader want to find the entire poem to read! Highly recommended by this family

The illustrations in this book are so beautiful, words can not explain. It is a simple read that introduces the little ones to poetry. Most poems are excerpts of a stanza or a few lines and the picture corresponds to the poem. Each poem either starts with the letter of the letter is bold in the poem and ties in the picture. For example, F=freedom, but the poem's first letter is not F, so F is bold in the word freedom. Highly recommended for the entire family.

According to the Forward in which the author explains the artistic process that resulted in his work, this book is unlike a traditional alphabet book in that it is "not so much to teach the alphabet to the very young, but to introduce a world of poetry and art to all children." Bryan employs a joyous tone to celebrate various aspects of the black experience, using "only the lines of the poems which inspired the images and capitalizing the alphabet letter wherever it occurred in those lines." Bryan's use of tempera and gouache paints in a bright color palette as well as a heavy brush stroke provide a texture and depth to the illustrations that is mimetic of the cultural richness he showcases. The author extends the text with his illustrations by introducing this technique on the title pages where the book's folk art style is used to create patterned borders that are reminiscent of kente cloth and sustaining the technique in his depiction of the subjects' skin tones and the fabrics they wear. The artistic revelry is strictly contained by and balanced within a large frame on each opening that regiments the placement of the poetry, the appropriate letter, and the poet's name on the backdrop of the illustration. Bryan's litany closes not with the letter Z but with acknowledgements that list the sources for all of the poems.