Celebrate the legacy of multi-award winning author and illustrator Ashley Bryan by learning more about his contributions and checking out one of his books today.
Authoring and illustrating more than 70 books, Bryan is remembered as a community cornerstone and kind person. Over the course of his career, he won the 2017 Newbery Honor for Freedom Over Me, the Coretta Scott King—Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, and several Coretta Scott King Awards. Bryan, beloved by his peers, made huge contributions to children's literature, breaking ground in discussions of representation and racial diversity.
Ashley Bryan's ABC of African-American Poetry
The alphabet takes a back seat to poetry and is lightheartedly wrestled into compliance as an organizational device in this exultant celebration of African-American writers. Each full-page entry features a short poem or poem fragment, surrounded by Bryan's vivid tempera and gouache paintings. To make this work as an alphabet book, the artist often takes the featured letter from a word within the poem, sometimes even a letter within a word (for "X," "Without eXpectation/there is no end/to the shock of morning/or even a small summer" from Audre Lorde's "Summer Oracle").
Ashley Bryan's African Tales, Uh-Huh
Retold with rich, musical narration, and illustrated with Mr. Bryan's distinctive paintings, these tales are full of fun and magic and a few lessons to be learned. They are tales of tricksters, chieftains, and both wise and foolish creatures. You will learn why Frog and Snake never play together, or why Bush Cow and Elephant are bad friends, or of the problems that a husband has because he likes to count spoonfuls. Although the stories come from many parts of Africa, they are full of the universal human spirit, to be shared and treasured for every generation, uh-huh.
Ashley Bryan: Words to My Life's Song
Told through drawings and photographs, the author's inspiring autobiography demonstrates his love for art and drawing which always sustained him even though he was turned away from art school because of his color, grew up through the Great Depression, and served his country in World War II.
In this simple adaptation of a tale from the Ila-speaking people of Zambia, the message is clear: "Black is beautiful." Once upon a time, Blackbird was the only bird of Africa who wasn't brightly colored. When Ringdove asks who is the most beautiful bird, the other birds name Blackbird. At Ringdove's request, Blackbird brings blackening from his medicine gourd to decorate Ringdove's colored neck; the other birds also want trimming, so Blackbird paints dots and brushes lines and arcs until his gourd is empty.
Infinite Hope: A Black Artist's Journey from World War II to Peace
In this haunting story, Bryan recalls his experiences during WWII. His draft notice arrived when he was a 19-year-old student at Cooper Union. Since childhood, he had drawn the world around him, and he continued to sketch throughout the war, using his gas mask to hold his pencils and his art to help him "survive the brutality" around him. Throughout those years, he continued to draw and write letters. The letters combine with Bryan's thoughtful text to form a vivid, personal narrative.
The Ox of the Wonderful Horns, and Other African Folktales
A trickster spider has his careful plan backfire, a frog and elephant team up to woo pretty girls, a calm tortoise outwits an underhanded hare, and more in these stories from Ghana, Angola, and South Africa. This beautiful picture book includes “Ananse the Spider in Search of a Fool;” “Frog and His Two Wives;” “Elephant and Frog Go Courting;” “Tortoise, Hare, and the Sweet Potatoes;” and “The Ox of the Wonderful Horns.”