Customer Reviews

I and I Bob Marley

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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Of the numerous Marley books out there, almost none of them depict Bob from the painter's eye. The work in this book is beautiful and I love how it traces Bob from boy to man. And my son just loves the pix as well. Some very powerful images here! Definitely at the top of my favorites in my collection of Marley books.

A child was born in the village of Nine Miles, Jamaica. People say that when he was born, "three little birds perched on the windowsill singing sweetly to the newborn." People said it was an omen and that this child would be blessed. As he grew people around him noticed that he was gifted in many ways and by the time he was five years old Nesta Robert Marley was reading palms in his grandfather's store. His father, a sixty-three-year-old white man, was said to have taken advantage of his young mother even though they did marry. He up and abandoned them soon after this special baby was born, but later came back to take him to become an "errand boy." It became Omeriah, his grandfather's job, to mentor and help raise him. His skin was light, his features European . . . his heritage was an embarrassment to him. Would his mother be able to get her son back? What would become of this special baby when he grew up, if he grew up?

"As I work in Granpapa's store
People come to me to
Read their palms

Mama says I'm special
She says I'm charmed
Like a prophet from the Bible

I just sit and smile
Glad to be her chile
Glad she's in my future . . ."

I loved the way this book makes the reader "feel" and sense the spirit of Bob Marley. This book is like a musical composition unto itself. The poetry provides the lyrics to Marley's life and the artwork provides the melody. Never really having known anything about him, I moved away from this book with a real sense of whom he was. The artwork is very vibrant, colorful, sweeping and quite appealing. In the back of the book the author's notes are, in reality, a short biography of the little boy from the Nine Miles to the Reggae artist with a song in his heart. This is a wonderful tribute to Marley and you might want to consider this book if you are a fan or simply want to know more about his life!

Bob Marley, renowned musician, poet, and advocate, made lasting and invaluable contributions to society. His songwriting and musical performances, with their messages of equality and hope, contributed to the rapid spread of reggae music around the world and earned him numerous high-profile awards. His political and ethical views, deeply intertwined in his music, strengthened his international appeal and also turned him into one of Jamaica's leading advocates for social justice.

This outstanding collection of original poems and bold, expressive artwork pays tribute to Bob Marley and introduces younger readers to his early years and his subsequent growth into a successful musician and spiritual leader. Thoroughly ingrained in the text and illustrations are important economic themes related to extreme poverty, inequality between blacks and whites, and the various forces -- including talent, mentorship, and entrepreneurial zeal -- that can nurture professional development. It is this combination of informative content with dramatic story-telling media that makes I and I such a potent vehicle for teaching the next generation about an influential artist and social leader who spread his message of peace in a truly innovative way.

This is a great book and its not just for kids.I learned a lot about Bob Marley and his music through this colorful and rythymic story. As I read the poems I felt the words sing to me as my eyes danced across the pages of "No Woman No Cry".I was suprised about the many facts of Bob Marley's life. My chidren will enjoy this book be educationaly enlightened. Dr Tony Medina has outdid himself, again


C Turnquest

I had gotten a copy for a Jamaican friend who knew Bob Marley, and when I saw how beautiful the book is, I ordered another copy for myself. My friend tells me he has framed the book jacket and has it hanging in his living room.

I recommend the book as an introduction to those (particularly young people) who are not familiar with Bob Marley's story.

This book should win a prize -- several prizes -- for its content and its cover.

I think about the best children's picture book biographies out there and I notice a strange pattern. Some folks get what seems like a picture book bio a year. Einstein. Franklin. Mozart. Other folks remain strangely elusive. Where's the quintessential picture book bio of Charlie Chaplin? Of Ernest Hemingway? Of the Mata Hari? Fact o' the matter is, not everyone is cut out for a picture book bio. Sometimes a person's life is just too difficult to synthesize into 32 pages, let alone something anyone could make kid-friendly AND honest. Extra kudos to author Tony Medina, then. With a big gap on my library shelf where Bob Marley's biography should have been long ago, it's nice to have something as lovely and enjoyable as I and I to offer the kids. Medina dances the dance of a man willing to tell the truth and nothing but the truth without having to get into the "whole" truth. No one can read this book and say it isn't an honest bio of Marley. And what Medina chooses to say about the man is interesting to watch.

On the day of his birth three little birds sang to him. The son of a white British captain and a very young Jamaican woman, Bob Marley (born Nesta Robert Marley) was special. The local population believed he could read palms, and he did so gladly until his father called him to big city Kingston when he was six. While there, Bob discovered music for the first time and from then on his path was set. He pursued his love, eventually joining with The Wailing Wailers, before setting out on his own. With Reggae and Rastafarianism close to his heart, he strove to bring peace to Jamaica. Cut down too soon due to cancer, his music and his memory live on in the hearts and minds of folks all over the world.

Tony Medina is probably best known to children's literature fans for his Love to Langston picture book biography of Langston Hughes. In other circles, he's best known as an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Howard University. He chose to write this book in verse, a fact that unnerved at least one person I spoke to. "If it's in verse, shouldn't it be in Marley's lyrics?" I can see the point, but I couldn't disagree more. Medina is careful to coax Marley's life into seventeen free verse poems. Each one has a purpose and a rhythm to it. Each one advances the story. It will, I admit, take a bit of guts on the part of some adults to read aloud to book to large groups of children. The very first poem "I Am the Boy from Nine Miles" begins, "I am the boy / From Nine Miles / the one sing / Like three little birds / From my mum mum belly." Kids will interpret this without difficulty. Grown-ups will take some coaxing.

So what's not in this book? Well, no mention is made of marijuana at any point, which is kind of funny when you consider the subject matter. Not that I'm surprised or anything. I doubt we'll be seeing picture book biographies mentioning drug use for a good 200 years, minimum. Like any human being, Marley wasn't a saint, so biographie-ing him up takes a bit of finesse. You don't want to lie about his past, but at the same time you want to be honest with your child readership. Thank goodness for Afterwords! In this particular case, Medina is able to honestly say that Marley fathered eleven kids (that we know about) from a variety of women, and only three from his actual wife. Both that and the pot don't make it into the main text either. Really, the book has found an interesting solution to the problem many picture book biographies face when trying to encompass an entire complex life with as few words as possible. While some titles prefer to give a rough gloss over the facts, leaving the explanations to the Notes or Afterword section at the end, I and I tells a complete story without the Notes' help. Reading this book, the important thing is to get a gist of why this man is famous, why this man is special, and what happened to him over the years. So pot and random offspring, not being why we celebrate him, are moved to the backburner, while the rest of his life is on display front and center for one and all to see. It doesn't make it any less funny that a Bob Marley biography is drug-free, but you understand the logic behind it.

Jesse Joshua Watson first came to my attention when he illustrated Greg Neri's fabulous Chess Rumble. With I and I, Medina may be the word man, but it's Watson's images that are going to get people to pick up this book in the first place. The man doesn't muck around. In this book he employs thick, vibrant acrylics on illustration board. The cover says it all, really. A laughing Marley, all teeth and crinkly eyes and masses of hair upon hair. With this book Watson strives to bring Marley to the forefront at all times. Even when he's nowhere to be seen (as with the image of Rita Anderson) you've the palpable sense that he's just outside the frame, making her laugh. Watson works to get at the heart of each poem too. The contemplative Marley sits next to the poem "Pitch-Black Sky" considering his world. A similarly thoughtful Marley sits next to "Fate Opens Up Its Hand", knowing now he has cancer. And most powerful of all are the eyes of six-year-old Bob, looking out the window of a bus, headed towards a father he does not know and who will ultimately abandon him once again. Those eyes stare scared, an arm covering his mouth, the image filling the whole page. And he's only six.

If have any problems with the book at all it's not so much the images but the design. Because Mr. Watson fills his paintings to brimming with life and art and color, there's no room for text. This means that the book is filled with black words on plain white spaces. There is no flow between the art and the language, and it stops you from getting wholly enmeshed in the story. Self-published books often make this mistake with their layouts. It's a pity something couldn't have been worked out with I and I to make the distinction between words and images less intense.

The great thing about I and I is the sheer amounts of joy it exudes. It doesn't gloss over the sad or unhappy elements of Bob's life, but it does place him within the context of his times. As a revolutionary and a poet-musician, Marley deserves a book that can display him at his best. And since I actually have heard children singing his songs in my library, I'll bet you dollars to donuts this book will find its audience. It's a story for everyone, and best of all it's true.

Ages 8 to 11.

I picked this up at the public library and loved it. I purchased it for my library, and have told the story aloud, rather than reading it. The beautiful pictures tell the story, and I emphasize to students that Bob's commitment to music and hard work through the years raised him out of poverty and humble circumstances. I find it hard to read all the poems aloud in a storytime in class, but parents could read aloud at home. Highly recommended for families and libraries. I read it in school when the students were studying biographies, and also for Black History Month.

When one first looks through I AND I, what hits you is an overwhelming sense of joy amidst the signs of struggle. Throughout the story, Jesse Joshua Watson's bold acrylics bring life and heart to Jamaican landscapes, markets, and music.

"In this day and age
The only way out of the
Hardship of the hood

"And its never-ending rage
Is to play soccer
Which we love

"Or to do something against
The law and risk a police baton
Whack across the jaw

"We don't want to
Land in jail
All we want to do is wail

"Be the voice of the voiceless
Bring some happiness and
Consciousness to the down-pressed

"Through our redemption songs."

I AND I is a picture book biography in verse about Bob Marley, the young man who brought reggae to the world and continues -- twenty-eight years after his young death in 1981 -- to inspire new generations through his music and his peaceful fight for social and economic justice.

Born to a teenage country girl of color and an elderly white military man, Bob Marley grew up rarely seeing his father. Growing up with prejudice and amidst poverty, music became a positive part of Bob's life from when he was a little boy, and by fourteen he was getting together with older musicians and stepbrother Bunny, and perfecting his craft.

"And music becomes my way of life
My business and my main source of knowledge"

There are great pieces about Bob's inspiration; about his sweetie, Rita; and about traveling the world spreading his music and his Rasta words.

I AND I concludes with a four-page, 3,000-word Author's Notes which is divided into segments that each coincide with one of the book's two-page spreads. The author's notes provide a tremendous amount of straightforward information about the life and beliefs of Bob Marley and the background of Jamaica.

"Stir it up, little darlin'; stir it up, come on baby..."

A joy to read and an inspiring introduction to an immortal figure of my lifetime, I AND I was wowing my grad students this summer and will surely leave quite an impression on today's adolescents.