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| Vol. 17, No. 7 | Oct. 16, 1997 |
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| Vol. 17, No. 7 | Oct. 16, 1997 |
Please tell me a story. Write it down so I can put it in my pocket and carry it around. Tell me about the people from Africa who came before me. Tell me how they worked the fields, built this country and made it great. Tell me how the Africans fought to be free here....Please tell me a story and make it sing for me.
Thus begins Sweet Words So Brave, The Story of African-American Literature, written by Barbara K. Curry, educational development, and James Michael Brodie, a freelance writer and editor with Baltimore City Paper, with illustrations by Jerry Butler of Madison Area Technical College in Wisconsin.
The children's book is written as a narrative by a grandfather, telling his granddaughter, Arabella, about African-American literature and writers, all set against the background of African-American history.
"The narrator in the book is very much like my grandfather, whom I used to visit in the country in Pennsylvania where I grew up. The little girl in the book is named Arabella, after my mother's mother- everyone told me I was much like her when I was a child," Curry recalled.
"There haven't been books on this topic written specifically for this audience, and we wrote Sweet Words So Brave to fill a gap and tell children about African-American literature in a way that would interest them," Curry said. Researched mainly at Lincoln University and the Library of Congress, the book traces African-American literature from the time of slavery-when teaching a slave to read and write was a crime-to the present.
Speaking of slaves, the grandfather says, "They remembered the stories from their lives in Africa...their voices carried lovely songs from deep in their throats over the night breeze. These folks pooled their different traditions to make one....They were not free, but they were very brave."
The book talks about early African-American authors--poet Phillis Wheatly, and William Wells Brown and Frederick Douglass, whose "writings helped free the slaves."
Of the Harlem Renaissance writers, the grandfather begins, "Have you heard of Harlem, youngster? Great things happened there. Come hear my words, I will soothe you with a song and comfort you with a blanket of stories."
When speaking of the Civil Rights Movement, the grandfather says, "When Mrs. Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, well, that's when it all came together. I tell you, something really clicked that day. It was a whole new world opened up."
The book ends with tales of modern day writers, such as Alex Haley, author of Roots; Toni Morrison, who was the first African American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993; and author and poet Maya Angelou.
The book has already received praise from reviewers. A critic in Kirkus Reviews wrote, "This stylish survey places African-American writers in a social and political framework. The approach is lively....Butler's illustration, in full-spread paintings resembling murals and incorporated with historical photographs and portraits, vibrantly wrap the book together."
A writer in The Washington Post Book World called Sweet Words So Brave a "sweeping and ambitious book, intended to introduce young children to the giants of African-American literature," adding that it is a "useful and well thought-out reference" that could encourage children to read the works on their own.
In Publishers Weekly, a reviewer said, "Speaking with genuine passion and immediacy, the narrator introduces many writers as if they were his personal friends, often giving his story the sound of an eyewitness account...."
Curry is a graduate of Franklin and Marshall College, received her master's degree from the University of Wisconsin and a master's and doctorate from Harvard University. Her research is people and their work in organizations, and she teaches courses in administration in education and how adults learn. She joined the UD faculty in 1990.
-Sue Swyers Moncure
