Paul Revere's Ride

Paul Revere's Ride

• author:  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow  http://www.hwlongfellow.org/
• illustrator:  Ted Rand  "no author website"
• medium: watercolor

• year of publication:  1990
• city of publication:  New York
• publisher:  Dutton Children's Books
• ISBN:  0-525-44610-9

Annotation:  The famous narrative poem recreating Paul Rever's midnight ride in 1775 to warn the people of the Boston coutnryside that the British were coming.

 

Personal Thoughts:   This was the second picturebook on the famous ride of Paul Revere I had the opportunity to evaluate.  I liked seeing the different presentations of the story.  Longfellow’s poem is fun to read, with its singsong rhyming scheme.  The other Paul Revere book I reviewed by Krensky had more factual details about the epic night of Revere’s ride.  I felt I learned more from Krensky, but Longfellow’s poem seems to be more memorable and written in 1861, it has an endearing and enduring quality.  It’s fun to read aloud, alone or with others. 

Funny, Ted Rand and Greg Harlan both illustrated different Paul Revere stories, and each books’ painting styles look rather similar.  Beside the differing texts, I wouldn’t be able to differentiate between the two books’ art.  It would have been a more exciting comparison if they had differed in looks more prominently. 

If you liked Longfellow and Rand’s Paul Revere’s Ride, you should check out Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride by Stephen Krensky and Greg Harlin.

***Curriculum Connection:  5^th Grade U.S. History, War of Independence, Paul Revere, American Colonies, American Revolutionary War

 

***Rhyme & Rhythm:

Listen, my children, and you shall hear 

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, 

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five, 

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

 

The rhyming aspect is more obvious than the rhythm, but the two go hand in hand.  The rhythm scheme is follows an A-A-B-B-A pattern, where the last word of the lines 1,2, and 5 rhyme and lines 3 and 4 rhyme independently. 

The Headless Bust: A Melancholy Meditation on the False Millenium

The Headless Bust: A Melancholoy Meditation on the False Millenium

• author & illustrator:  Edward Gorey  http://www.edwardgoreyhouse.org/
• ink sketches
• year of publication: 1999
• publication city:  New York
• publisher:  Harcourt Brace & Company
• ISBN:  0-15-100514-1

Annotation: Edmund Gravel and the Bahhumbug meet a winged Whatsit bug that whisks them off to a faraway island where they witness the eerie encounters of a macabre group of characters at the turn of the millennium.

Personal Thoughts: This is a very strange book indeed.  The story is told in verse and involves an aristocratic looking gentleman called Edmund Gravel and a giant black bug called the Bahhumbug, who are returning characters from previous Edward Gorey books.  The two are transported via dark cloud to a faraway island where they witness the misadventures of other dismal characters that seem to weave in and out of the story with rhyme, but without reason.  We hear of dogs who go into comas, a man with six toes, a pianist who goes into seclusion after losing her dress on stage.  What is going on in these stories?  It is truly hard to figure out. 

 

But Gorey is probably best known for his grim and gothic sketches.  This book is fun due in large part to the giant Bahhumbug standing next to well dressed Edmund.  The juxtaposition brings to mind so many interesting comparisons, from Kafka to Tim Burton to Disney to E.T.  Gorey will attract interest from anyone who magnetizes toward the macabre.  Even though the writing is nonsensical, the pictures the reader grounded.

Blues Journey

Blues Journey

•  author:  Walter Dean Myers  http://www.walterdeanmyers.net/
• illustrator:  Christopher Myers  "no author website"
• medium: blue ink, white paint, and brown paper bags

• year of publication:  2003
• publication city:  New York
• publisher:  Holiday House
• ISBN:  0-8234-1613-5

annotation:  An introductory lesson to the African American legacy of blues music, using Myers’ poetry in “call and response” structure.  Accompanying artwork depicts African American blues experience from the end of slavery to today.

Personal thoughts:  My initial reaction to Blues Journey was that the pictures are very haunting and blue, almost ghostly.  It’s like we’re looking into the past.  Christopher Myers’ art is non linear and seemingly not connected from one page to the next.  The poetry is sparse and I thought it was going to be a quick, easy read.

Myers’ introduction is fantastic, describing a brief and full lesson on the history and theory of the blues.  For decades, I’ve heard blues and I never realized the “call and response” singing form, where a first verse represents the call, and the second verse representing the singer responding to their own call. 

Strange fruit hanging, high in a big oak tree

Strange fruit hanging, high in a big oak tree

You can see what it did to Willie,

can you see what it does to me?

Within the first paragraph of the introduction I have been taught a huge lesson in blues music.  The introduction explains the development of blues music as an intersection of African singing style and seven-tone scale with European English. 

The poems themselves are the real deal.  I wasn’t sure if the poems were taken from actual blues classics, but concluded that Walter Dean Myers has written new blues lyrics that are legitimately good enough to be sung as traditional blues.  The material is heart-wrenching and complicated, using lots of symbolism and sophisticated language.  Combined with Christopher Myers’ sparse paintings, you really get a feel for blues music and can almost hear steel strings in the background as you read the haunting lyrics.

***use of symbol -  strange fruit hanging, high in a big oak tree

***use of repetition,***use of sophisticated language - 

Pain will push and poke you, 

despair will scrape the bone

Pain will push and poke you, 

despair will scrape the bone

Misery loves company, 

blues can live alone