From: Lbhcove at aol.com <Lbhcove>
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:47:12 EDT

I, too, knew Ezra quite well and spent a lot of time with him. In an interview with Ezra (known as Jack to his friends) he told me back in the late l960's:
 
"I decided to make young peter a Negro child. I had been illustrating books by other people showing the goodness of white children, and in my own book I wanted to show and share the beauty and goodness of the black child. I wanted the world to know that all children experience, wonderful things in life. I wanted to convey the joy of being a little boy alive on a certain kind of day -- of being for that moment. Theair is cold, you touch the snow, aware of the things to which all children are so open."
  Upon her death, Tillie S. Pine gave me two original drawings from one of Keat's first books THE INDIANS KNEW., which she wrote with Joseph Levine. How different are these drawings from his experimentation with collage and his future work. One would hardly know these works are by Keats. From 'Indians' to a 'Negro' child...to now...talk about giant steps for humankind!
  Lee Bennett Hopkins
 
  LEE'S POETRY A-B-C' s

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Received on Mon 20 Jul 2009 11:47:12 AM CDT