by Sam Juliano
Urban neighborhoods steaming with life, culture and creativity are too often the subject of misguided perception and racist profiling by those who make generalizations about high crime statistics and impoverishment. Despite the hardships endured by those who are eternally making do with so little this is an environment where youthful imagination soars and artistic inclinations flourish. It is a place where inspiration is wed to tenacity and single-mindedness. Eight year-old Ava Murray resides in a Bronx neighborhood marked by ethic diversity and a hankering by its inhabitants to pursue their artist inclinations. At her home she is always perplexed that the stories she hears from the television paint her neighborhood in a very poor light. One incredulous story features a girl about her age being handcuffed for “breaking the rules” which as Ava’s mom explains to her is the result of her graffiti activity. The youthful idealist, with a thirst for creativity and bereft of a mean bone in her body can’t come to terms with society putting a clamp on the urban beautification of her Bruckner Boulevard environs, a place the youngster observes as a “world of many colors and sounds”; shapes and sizes that are bright and bold.”
Ava is the central protagonist in a story of artistic fortitude in an urban hamlet where communal camaraderie and a singular purpose provides the inspiration for vocational advancement which is simultaneously impacted by a certainty of conviction that there is a spiritual kinship with artists, musicians, dancers and writers who rose out of their roots to make their mark in the world. In I Can Write the World by Joshunda Sanders, with illustrations by Charly Palmer, Ava experiences the power of her fellow African-Americans in the New York City borough where Murderer’s Row played in the most famous of all baseball stadiums, one of the nation’s largest zoos sits in defiance of of its ultra-urban surroundings, and where rap and hip-hop music originated. Ava and her family reside in the poorest Borough in the city, where the median family income is around $37.000, less than half that enjoyed by Manhattanites. But as expressed so movingly in two previous Caldecott Honor books, A Chair for my Mother by Vera Williams and Tar Beach by Faith Ringold those with a free verse spirit, and a hankering to create can make claim on a wider universe than the constricted one some are eternally bound to and those with self-confidence and the ability to find the beauty and express their own voice in an area too often castigated for the same issues that plague all inner-city neighborhoods.
Sanders’ powerful language is amplified by Palmer’s striking saturated watercolors in a style that echos back to the Caldecott Honor winning Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut by Gordon C. James and Derrick Barnes, a picture book about inner-city pride fueled by a session at the barbershop. Yet Palmer’s thick strokes and sublime color blends accentuate the notion that so much can be done with so little and that economic fortune can easily be trumped by an intrepid mind-set. It is worth noting that Sanders purposely steers clear of the racial divisiveness that often characterizes indeed maligns predominately African-American and Hispanic districts (the arresting officer and newscasters are also black and Hispanic) to focus solely on how artistic inclinations are too often censored in a culture where officials are unable to see the forests for the trees. When Sanders beautifully asserts She did something against the rules/Painting pretty pictures/That made plain walls sparkle like jewels she forceful confirms that adage, one Palmer transcribes with a sublime brushstroke bonanza. A further condemnation of misguided authority is manifested in the “I love Bronx” shirt the girl is wearing. Ava asks her mother Kim, why the girl was taken into custody and she is told that she didn’t ask for permission to make something pretty. The mother further explains that this forbidden form of art, largely discouraged because some use it to deface public property, is an outlet for kids wanting to share their talents with the world. Ava temporarily avails herself of the walls in the family kitchen to draw while on the opposite half page canvas another boy with a graffiti propensity is being lectured by a policeman.
Ever the stalwart coach in creative purpose, Kim explains to her daughter that there are multiple ways to define creativity:
Creativity is using what you have/To make a map of your dreams/What you see in your mind/Or feel in your heart/Can come out in dance, colors or beats.
A double page spread includes a dazzling collage streaming from mom’s head, one documenting the vibrancy of the Bronx, a place where talent and tenaciousness are intricately woven. Mom tells Ava that when she were her age there weren’t art classes, but “black and brown” kids were basically self-taught in the art of sketching and rapping, the latter “made the hip-hop culture cool.” Kim admits to Ava that the world doesn’t always see the Bronx citizens as they see themselves, but rather as part of a place where adverse news stories imply a kind of guilt by association. Mom provides Ava with a powerful metaphor, telling her that the frame around the window -through which she sees everything below- can be compared to journalists who basically “Tell the stories they think we should know.” Ava is inspired to imagine herself negotiating a bird’s eye view of sidewalk, where she may talk to her neighbors and put together stories. At school teachers enrich the concept by encouraging Ava and the others to write about what they love most and about their home neighborhoods. Ava concludes: I can write the world! Palmer’s stunning collage includes Ava at a laptop and later holding a microphone and writing on a notebook in a hodgepodge of documentation on the street where pop art graffiti makes itself cognizant.
Ava decides to ask her mom to be the subject for her first interview. Kim is deeply honored as Palmer’s effervescent close-up of mom and daughter glowingly affirms. The first question inquires about the music and art created by the students from her school days. As they observe a phantasmagorical graffiti canvas Mom explains that this is the location where the artistic creativity took flight in the personages of Grandmaster Flash and Kool Herc, who, she proudly proclaims “made New sounds from music with records and a Microphone.” Sanders and Palmer bring the incomparable energy of salsa and reggae, staples of hip hop music, which Sanders relates also bears elements of African drumbeats, dance hall Jazz, Rhythm & Blues. The illustrator’s frenzied collage and impressionist coloring scores mightily on the soundscape front. In a street celebration spread recalling Roxane Orgill and Francis Vellejo’s Jazz Day, mom declares that the past is integral to modern-day creativity, a point enhanced by a dazzling double page golden spread of Egyptian hieroglyphics which were considered the first actual graffiti and the first example of every mark, then and now being tailored and specific, much like today’s graffiti. In a classroom Ava celebrates the Bronx she knows, a place where there is so much good despite the cynical assessments from those who haven’t lived it. The beating heart of the Bronx, a place as vibrant and indomitable as any on the planet is captured in another Palmer collage that Spike Lee would be mighty proud of, a fever dream canvas ubiquitous for its apartment buildings, boom box, hard working men and the homespun graffiti denoting “Beautiful Bronx.”
I Can Write the World is one of the most inspiring picture books of 2019. The author’s prose urges readers never to look behind them and through Ava she creates an inquisitive character in love with the place she is reared in, and where she wants to document to show the world that culture is alive and well, influenced by both a gloried past and homespun talent which triumphed over the obstacles of living in a place where opportunities were earned, not inherited. While the book is a true example of collaborative excellence between a writer with some obvious autobiographical stories to tell, and an illustrator who fully understands the moods, textures, sounds and sights of Bronx, New York, the Caldecott committee should be taking a hard look at this urban symphony, sublimely orchestrated by the exceedingly talented Palmer. It is extra nice that a smaller publisher, Six Foot Press has released such a resplendent work.
Note: This is the ninth entry in the 2019 Caldecott Medal Contender series. The annual venture does not purport to predict what the committee will choose, rather it attempts to gauge what the writer feels should be in the running. In most instances the books that are featured in the series have been touted as contenders in various online round-ups at children’s book sites, but for the ones that are not, the inclusions are a humble plea to the committee for consideration. It is anticipated the series will include in the neighborhood of around 15 to 20 titles; the order which they are being presented in is arbitrary, as every book in this series is a contender. Some of my top favorites of the lot will be done near the end. The awards will be announced in January, hence the reviews will continue until the early part of that month.
