Coretta Scott King award winners

By Chris Gustafson

The Coretta Scott King awards are given yearly to recognize titles by African American authors that inspire and educate young people. The winners this year give glimpses of life across centuries of African American experience in the United States.

Day of Tears: a Novel in Dialogue by Julius Lester (2006 Coretta Scott King Award Winner)

Based on real people and actual records of an auction of 400 slaves in Georgia, Lester uses dialogue to show the devastation caused when families are pulled apart; a cruel necessity because Master Butler's gambling debts must be paid. Emma is a twelve year old, comparatively pampered house slave, and Master Butler has promised not to sell her, but when he receives a good offer for her, the deal is made. Twenty-five characters relate their experiences regarding the auction, including the auctioneer who ruins his voice during the two days of the sale by trying to project it over sound of pelting rain that forms an rhythmic backdrop for the melancholy proceedings. Many personal stories are interwoven here; particularly intriguing is that of British actress Fanny Kemble, who was married to Master Butler, but left him when he refused to emancipate his slaves.

Dark Sons by Nikki Grimes (2006 Coretta Scott King Honor Book)

Grimes has constructed a complex novel that compares the experiences of the Biblical Ishmael, born to the patriarch Abraham and his serving woman Hagar because Abraham's wife can't conceive, to a modern-day African American boy named Sam. In verse, Ishmael describes his close, loving relationship with Abraham and with Abraham's God, along with the increasing stress and tension between Hagar and Sarah. Even when Sarah becomes pregnant and baby Isaac is born, Ishmael is sure nothing can fray his bond with Abraham, but Sarah's jealousy eventually prompts Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael into exile. Ishmael is initially unsure of the constancy of God's love for him, since Abraham was willing to sever their relationship. Meanwhile, Sam's parents divorce and his father leaves his mother for a white woman, starting a new family with her. Sam's father's faith played a big part in Sam's own beliefs, and he struggles to understand why God would allow his father to leave. The inevitably rocky progress of his relationship with his stepmother and Sam's growing love for his step-brother provide places for healing.

Maritcha, a Nineteenth-Century American Girl by Tonya Bolden (2006 Coretta Scott King Honor Book)

Maritcha Lyons was born in 1848 in New York City, part of a community of free African Americans. Her parents ran a boarding house in lower Manhattan which was a stop on the Underground Railroad, and Maritcha's days were full of school, chores, church, and piano lessons, under-girded with instruction about the importance of giving back to the community. Although there were often daily instances of prejudice to deal with, and constant concern about discovery of the true purpose of the boarding house, Maritcha's life proceeded with a fair amount of tranquility until the Draft Riots of 1863. Poor white New Yorkers who could not afford to pay $300 to avoid serving for the Union in the Civil War took out their anger on local African-Americans, and Maritcha's family fled to Rhode Island, where she integrated her graduating class at Providence High School. A true story illustrated with wonderful photos, drawings, and documents of the period.

A Wreath for Emmett Till by Marilyn Nelson (2006 Coretta Scott King Honor Book)

In 1955, a fourteen year old African-American boy named Emmett Till who had grown up in Chicago was visiting relatives in Mississippi. Emmett's mother had warned him that he couldn't use his free and easy northern manners in the south and Emmett had listened, but an unwary exchange he had with a white woman store clerk resulted in Till's hideously brutal lynching. His mother bravely proceeded with an open casket viewing, a photographer's picture of Emmett's ravaged body at his funeral is credited with beginning the modern civil rights movement. Marilyn Nelson has chosen to tell Emmett's story in the form of a heroic crown of sonnets, an immensely strict form in which the last line of each poem becomes the first line of the next, with the fifteenth and final poem made up of the first lines of the previous fourteen. Poignant, thought-provoking, illustrated with paintings by Philippe Lardy that both soothe the soul and pick at the painful scab of racism.

Chris Gustafson is the Library Teacher at Whitman Middle School. Do you have a question for Chris? Email her at cgustafson@seattleschools.org