Langston Hughes: American Poet. (children's reviews).

Langston Hughes: American Poet
by Alice Walker
illustrated by Catherine Deeter
HarperCollins (text 1974), January 2002
$16.95, ISBN 0-060-21518-6, Ages 9 to 12

In Langston Hughes: American Poet, author and poet Alice Walker paints a lyrical picture of the Harlem Renaissance literary icon. With a dizzying display of verbal and visual imagery, Langston Hughes is a captivating story of such beauty that you soon forget it is a children's book. This biographical tale unfolds like a storybook, but reads like a classic novel. A quick read--the book can be finished in less than ten minutes--it is surprisingly crammed with facts and information about Langston Hughes, so much so, that it reads like a crash course on the writer's life and times.

Walker takes one of Hughes's most memorable poems, The Negro Speaks of Rivers, and puts it in terms that are easy for even small children to understand. She artfully transplants the poem to a present-day setting, and asserts that Langston "decided that it was wrong to love books more than people. He wanted to live life firsthand, seeing it with his own eyes; not secondhand through books."

This short, 37-page interpretation of Langston Hughes's life is an excellent way for parents and teachers to introduce great works from two major literary figures--Alice Walker and Langston Hughes--to young readers. The illustrations by Catherine Deeter will entice the most reluctant readers, and may encourage further reading.

--Kalilah Genice Shambry is a freelance writer living in Houston.