21 Feb Review: There Was a Party for Langston
There Was a Party for Langston
by Jason Reynolds; illustrated by Jerome Pumphrey and Jarrett Pumphrey
Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2023
ISBN: 9781534439443 (hardcover)
$23.99 CAD
48 pages
Ages: 4 to 12 years old
Review by Maria Cavaiuolo
This non-fiction picture book celebrates Langston Hughes’ “King o’ Letters”. The story takes place at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, where a party is going on with music, dancing, and laughter. Langston’s literary work is being honoured for inspiring African American authors to be proud of being Black. Maya Angelou and Amiri Baraka were both inspired at a young age by Langston, their literary hero. This book gives glimpses of Langston as a child daydreaming under the Ohio sky. The book’s illustrations bring life to Langston’s love of words, playfully turned into objects and people. The letter “s” is shaped into a saxophone. The word “mother” is molded into the body of a woman hugging a child. Young readers will equally be inspired to play with words as their curiosity will surely be piqued to search for words and letters embedded in every image.