Carter Reads the Newspaper

Peachtree Publishers
 (pub. 2.1.2019) 
  36 pages

A True Tale with
A Cherry On Top   

A uthor:  

Deborah Hopkinson
 and illustrator: Don Tate
 
C haracter: Carter G. Woodson

O verview from the jacket flap: 
     "Each February we celebrate Black History Month. It's a time to honor heroes like Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King Jr. But there's one hero we sometimes forget.

      Carter G. Woodson didn't help people escape from slavery, start a bus strike, or lead a movement of millions. Yet without Woodson, the Father of Black History, we might not have Black History Month.

     Carter never wrote much about his own personal history. But we know that he listened and learned from those around him. Although his father couldn't read, he believed in being an informed citizen. So Carter read the newspaper to him, and later to men in the West Virginia coal mines, where he toiled when just a teen.

     And so the seeds of Carter's own life work began to grow. He went on to become the only child of enslaved parents to earn a PhD in history. In 1926, Carter established Negro History Week, now known as Black History Month.

     Carter G. Woodson dedicated his life to finding, preserving, and teaching the whole truth about American history. It was, he believed, the only way to build a real democracy."
   

T antalizing taste: 

      "At Harvard, so the story goes, one of Carter's professors said that Black people had no history.

     Carter remembered his father's pride, his mother's courage, and Oliver's determination to learn. He remembered reading the newspaper.

     Carter spoke up. 'No people lacked a history,' he said. The professor challenged Carter to prove him wrong.

     For the rest of his life, Carter did just that."

And something more: At the back of Carter Reads the Newspaper, Deborah Hopkinson explains in her Author's Note: "Dr. Carter G. Woodson... conducted groundbreaking research, and built a movement to honor and recognize African-American contributions to history that is still alive and vibrant. The organization that he founded in 1915 thrives today as ASALH, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. In 1976, his home and office headquarters in Washington, D.C., was designated a National Historic Landmark."

Strong As Sandow

How Eugen Sandow
Became the Strongest
Man on Earth 

Charlesbridge

(pub. 8.22.2017)
40 pages

A True Tale with
A Cherry On Top   

A uthor 
    and illustrator: Don Tate

C haracter: Eugen Sandow

O verview from the jacket flap: 

     "As a boy, Eugen Sandow was sickly and weak. But his spirit was strong. Through exercise and healthy living, he built himself up to be one of the strongest men on earth.
     Sampson and Cyclops were also strong. The brawny brutes flexed their mighty muscles, lifted heavy weights, and hoisted horses and elephants like they were feathers.
     Who would dare try to defeat them in a contest of strength?...
     Ezra Jack Keats Book Award winner Don Tate tells the larger-than-life story of Eugen Sandow, the father of modern-day bodybuilding and a champion of healthy living for all.

T antalizing taste: 
      

     "Strong and Stronger
     Prussia to Belgium 1885?-1887
     One day a traveling circus rolled into town. Friedrich [his name before he changed it to Eugen] snuck away from school to watch. He was starstruck by the performers - tumblers, wrestlers, acrobats, strongmen. The lure was simply too much to resist. Friedrich left the university and joined the circus. He became an acrobat. 
     Life as an acrobat was physically demanding. Friedrich tumbled and bent and balances. He flipped and flopped and stood on his hands. Soon he began to notice in his body: his muscles wee getting bigger and stronger."

 

and something more: In the Author's Note, Don Tate discusses what drew him to tell the story of Eugen Sandow:  "As a kid, I was skinny. Recognizing my anxiety about it, my dad bought me a bench press and a copy of the The Bodybuilder's Nutrition Book.  It featured nutrition information, along with photos of famous bodybuilders... I dreamed of someday having powerful muscles like them." And then, in his 30s, Don Tate began his "bodybuilding journey" and eventually took and first and second in a contest. And the book includes a photo of Don Tate in 1998 in the Upper Midwest Natural Bodybuilding Championships.
   I was interested to learn that "writing Sandow's story was challenging" for Don Tate because of limited records about Sandow and varied stories about Sandow and his past and accomplishments.  Don Tate explained his goal for the book: "to tell the story as I think Sandow would have wanted it told, fanciful as that might be. Regardless of his true origins (and a few less-than-admirable things I learned about him) the story of Eugen Sandow is an important one. His tale of sickly kid turned physical-fitness guru and self-made businessman inspired millions of people... [He showed] how a healthy body is necessary for a healthy mind. His lesson rings true today."

It Jes' Happened

When Bill Traylor
Started to Draw

This post is part of Nonfiction Monday hosted today
at NC Teacher Stuff

and joins It's Monday!

What are you reading?

at Teacher Mentor Texts

Lee & Low Books 

(pub. 4.1.2012) 32 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Don Tate

     and Illustrator: R. Gregory Christie

C haracter: Bill Traylor

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "Growing up as an enslaved boy on an Alabama cotton farm, Bill Traylor worked all day in the hot fields. When slavery ended, Bill's family stayed on the farm as sharecroppers. There Bill grew to manhood, raised his own family, and cared for the land and his animals.
      By 1935 Bill was eighty-one  and all alone on his farm. So he packed his bag and moved to Montgomery, the capital of Alabama. Lonely and poor, he wandered the busy downtown streets. But deep within himself Bill had a reservoir of memories of working and living on the land, and soon those memories blossomed into pictures. Bill began to draw people, places, and animals form his earlier life, as well as scenes of the city around him.
      Today Bill Traylor is considered to be one of the most important self-taught American folk artists...It Jes' Happened is a lively tribute to this man who has enriched the world with more than twelve hundred warm, energetic, and often humorous pictures."

T antalizing taste: 

       "Bill could not contain his memories. One day in early 1939 he picked up the stub of a pencil and a piece of discarded paper and began to pour out his memories in pictures. Bill's first drawings were simple items: cats, cups, shoes, baskets. Then he began to draw human and animal forms too. He used the side of a stick to rule straight lines and shapes. Rectangles became bodies. Circles became heads and eyes. Lines became outstretched arms, hands, and legs. He filled in shapes with sketchy lines and smoothed out edges...
      And the clang-clang-clang from the nearby blacksmith's shop provided background music for Bill while he worked."

                       

and something more:  I was impressed by the wealth of information available on the Teacher Activity Guide for It Jes' Happened on Don Tate's website. I particularly enjoyed reading about Don Tate's personal and artistic connections to Bill Traylor: 

"What aspect of the man is most compelling to you, his art or his life?

"Bill Traylor’s life as a slave, sharecropper and artist are all compelling stories. Definitely not easily separated. But I was most moved and inspired by his story of becoming not only an artist, but one of the most important artists of our time..."

"In what ways do you relate to Bill Traylor? As an artist? As a father? As a man?

"When I began to research and study the life of Bill Traylor, I immediately felt a kindred spirit to the artist. With no formal training (or any artistic experience that we know of), Bill answered his calling to become an artist late in his life. I did, too. I’ve been drawing since I was old enough to hold a pencil in my hands, but I didn’t discover a love of writing until just a few years ago, well into my 40s. And like Bill, I had friends along the way who helped me develop my new found love of words...

       Words have a way of finding your past. And so do pictures, as Bill discovered. When I write, I often find myself laughing, or frowning, or even on the verge of tears, as I recall childhood events. I imagine Bill did the same thing as he drew pictures from his life as a slave, as a hardworking sharecropper, as a homeless man living on the streets."

She Loved Baseball

The Effa Manley Story

This post is part of Nonfiction Monday 

hosted today by The Swimmer Writer

Harper Collins Childrens

(pub. 10.19.2010)  32 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Audrey Vernick
     and Illustrator:  Don Tate

C haracter: Effa Manley

 

O verview from the jacket flap: 

         "Effa Manley always loved baseball. As a young woman, she would go to Yankee Stadium just to see Babe Ruth's mighty swing. But she never dreamed she would someday own a baseball team. Or be the first—and only—woman ever inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

         From her childhood in Philadelphia to her groundbreaking role as business manager and owner of the Newark Eagles, Effa Manley always fought for what was right. And she always swung for the fences." 

 

T antalizing taste: 

     "As Effa grew up in Philadelphia in the early 1900s, America grew up too. Bold new music - jazz - blared and folks stepped out in strange new shoes called sneakers... [In] 2006... Suttles and Mackey - and ten other Negro League players - were finally inducted into the Hall of Fame.  Effa would have been so proud.  Something else happened that day - something amazing. Effa was inducted along with them!....  On Effa's gravestone it says: "SHE LOVED BASEBALL.  In 2006, baseball proved it loved her back."

and something more:   The teacher activity guide for She Loved Baseball - The Effa Manley Story posted on Audrey Vernick's website proposes an interesting activity for students:

"Effa grew up in the 1920’s listening to a new kind of music—jazz—
and sneakers were all the rage. If someone were to write a
biography about your life, what kind of music would be mentioned? What
about a fashion trend? Draw an illustration of yourself like the one Don
Tate created of Effa listening to jazz music. In the background, add some of your favorite things that are popular in today’s culture."

What type of music would accompany your biography?  I think I would have different music for different phases of my life. 

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. HOLIDAY

And, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day today, The King Center Imaging Project’s website – www.thekingcenter.org/archive – will go live today.  The King Center Imaging Project is a digitization effort to preserve and make publicly available the tens of thousands of documents from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other key figures and organizations from the Civil Rights Movement housed at The King Center.

On the King Center site, Coretta Scott King writes that "The Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday celebrates the life and legacy of a man who brought hope and healing to America. We commemorate as well the timeless values he taught us through his example — the values of courage, truth, justice, compassion, dignity, humility and service that so radiantly defined Dr. King’s character and empowered his leadership. On this holiday, we commemorate the universal, unconditional love, forgiveness and nonviolence that empowered his revolutionary spirit."