From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 17:14:08 -0500

What a marvelous commentary you wrote, Joyce Hansen, about Angela Johnson's books and the different they make. You are an author of note yourself, and your books also make a difference, so your generosity in commenting on Ms. Johnson's books is all the more moving and helpful to read.
  It was also so good to see what Dean Schneider and Henrietta Smith wrote earlier about Angela Johnson's books and what others in the CCBC-Net community have expressed during the past week or so.
  Like others I also appreciate her writing in highly visual books such as Those Building Men, When I Am Old with You, Daddy Calls Me Man and Do Like Kyla.
  Dean observed that The Other Side: The Shorter Poems is one of his favorites, and it's one of mine, too. Somehow whenever I think about the small towns so devastated by hurricanes & tornadoes during the past months these poems come to mind. Even though Shorter was changing for reasons other than the impact of natural disasters, Ms. Johnson so effectively expresses the importance of a place in experience and memory. It's great to find out from Lee that it won the Penn State's 1999 Lee Bennett Hopkins Award. Here's what was written about The Other Side in CCBC Choices 1998 -
"Shorter, Alabama, is the community of childhood and family for writer Angela Johnson. The place where she grew up, it is filled with memories that will soon be all that she has left of Shorter. Her Grandmama writes her, 'They're pullin' Shorter down.' And so the subtitle of this collection is a play on words that echoes with poignancy as readers move through a series of poems that are quiet reflections of childhood feelings and events seen through the eyes of an adult returning to the place of her past with appreciation for what was and sadness for what never will be again. Written without sentimentality or nostalgia but rippling with emotions rooted in childhood that continue to resonate, these poems also provide detailed, sensual observations of life and people in a small, southern African American community during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The book is illustrated with black-and-white photographs from the author's personal collection. Like Hollis, perhaps many of us can name a favorite novel by Ange la Johnson. Like Megan, mine is also Toning the Sweep. It's the first one published, but perhaps it wasn't the first one written. (Who knows about anything about that?) Toning the Sweep appeared on just about every "best of the year" list when it was new, and as Henrietta pointed out, it was acknowledged formally by the Coretta Scott King Award. Here's an excerpt from "CCBC Choices 1993" -
"In a family composed of three strong, independent women (daughter, mother, grandmother), it's often what's left unsaid among them that resonates the loudest for the youngest family member, 14-year-old Emmie. Now that Grandmother Ola is dying with cancer, Emmie feels compelled to hear the truth behind their silences. She knows that something awful happened long ago that no one ever mentions. What was it? In a spare, eloquent first novel, Angela Johnson shows that silence can dull the pain of tragedy but can never really cure it..." If you can possibly arrange to come to the Charlotte Zolotow Lecture to be given by Angela Johnson on Wednesday, October 5, you won't be disappointed. As Joyce said, she has set a high standard, and it seems to me that she never repeats herself in her books, so this is bound to be significant. Her talk is titled: Cheerleader Tears and Traveling the Road Together. Now doesn't that make you want to check your calendar? For details about the lecture and about parking, too, see: http:
//www.soemadison.wisc.edu/ccbc/czfaq.asp
  Peace, Ginny
 

Ginny Moore Kruse gmkruse at education.wisc.edu
 
 
Received on Mon 26 Sep 2005 05:14:08 PM CDT