My Hands Sing the Blues - by Jeanne Walker Harvey (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

As a young boy growing up in North Carolina, Romare Bearden listened to his great-grandmother's Cherokee stories and heard the whistle of the train that took his people to the North--people who wanted to be free. When Romare boarded that same train, he watched out the window as the world whizzed by. Later he captured those scenes in a famous painting, Watching the Good Trains Go By. Using that painting as inspiration and creating a text influenced by the jazz that Bearden loved, Jeanne Walker Harvey describes the patchwork of daily southern life that Romare saw out the train's window and the story of his arrival in shimmering New York City. Artists and critics today praise Bearden's collages for their visual metaphors honoring his past, African American culture, and the human experience. Elizabeth Zunon's illustrations of painted scenes blended with collage are a stirring tribute to a remarkable artist.

My Hands Sing the Blues is the recipient of the 2012 IRA Children's and Young Adults' Book Award-Primary Nonfiction, as well as the gold winner of a Moonbeam Children's Book Award in the category of Picture Book-All Ages.

Review Quotes

"Readers might tap their feet reading the jazzy poetry or perhaps try their hand at a collage. There is an opportunity to learn about the Underground Railroad, Harlem, and Jim Crow Laws. But the lesson Bearden teaches us is that art can help make sense of the events in our lives." --Callie Feyen, Christian Home & School