We Are America: A Tribute from the Heart (1 Paperback/1 CD)

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We Are America: A Tribute from the Heart (1 Paperback/1 CD)

Audio CD(Reprint)

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Audio CD(Reprint)
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Overview

Celebrate America's freedom dream with National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author Walter Dean Myers and Caldecott Honor artist Christopher Myers!

Over the centuries, from a blank canvas of mountains, plains, and canyons, the American landscape has been richly carved by revolution, progress, and possibility. Yet its story is still being written—by its diverse people who are united by the freedom in their hearts. With graceful, lyrical prose and evocative paintings, Newbery Honor author Walter Dean Myers and Coretta Scott King Honor artist Christopher Myers, the father-son team who created Harlem, pay tribute to the spirit and soul that is America.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781430111115
Publisher:	Live Oak Media (NY)
Publication date:	05/28/2015
Edition description:	Reprint
Product dimensions:	12.40(w) x 12.60(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

About the Author

Five-time Coretta Scott King Award winner Walter Dean Myers was the acclaimed author of a wide variety of nonfiction and fiction for young people. His nonfiction includes We Are America: A Tribute from the Heart; Now Is Your Time!: The African-American Struggle for Freedom; I've Seen the Promised Land: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Malcom X: A Fire Burning Brightly; and Patrol: An American Soldier in Vietnam, a Jane Addams Children's Book Award winner. His illustrious list of young adult novels includes Darius & Twig; All the Right Stuff; Lockdown; Dope Sick; Autobiography of My Dead Brother; New York Times bestseller Monster, the first winner of the Michael L. Printz Award; and many more. He was a National Ambassador for Young People's Literature and an inaugural NYC Literary Honoree.

Christopher Myers is a graduate of Brown University and the Whitney Museum of Art Independent Studio Program. He is the acclaimed illustrator of Love: Selected Poems by E. E. Cummings; Harlem: A Poem, a Caldecott Honor Book; Jazz, a Coretta Scott King Honor Book; Blues Journey, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book. He is also the author-illustrator of Black Cat and H.O.R.S.E.: A Game of Basketball and Imagination, both Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Books; We Are America: A Tribute from the Heart; A Time to Love: Stories from the Old Testament; Looking Like Me; Wings; and Fly!

From the B&N Reads Blog

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Editorial Reviews

Best for children with a firm grasp of history, We Are America offers an inclusive, unblinkered variation of patriotism.
—The New York Times

Pamela Paul

The images and text are vibrant, featuring paintings from Christopher Myers that evoke the sweep of history, provocative poetry from Walter Dean Myers, and pertinent quotes…
—The Washington Post

Abby McGanney Nolan

The father and son team behind Jazz and other award-winning titles pays homage to the entire United States in a soul-searching, free-verse poem examining the people, ideals, and promise of America. The verse journeys along a rough historical chronology. "Before the ships came... My Lakota heart pounded the rhythms/ Of this sacred land." Following are dreams of and fights for freedom, and periods of unrest and abuse (slavery, Japanese internment), when "Like clumsy children we fell/ As we learned to run." Christopher Myers's evocative paintings often juxtapose different eras; a scene in which a firefighter turns his hose on a group of African-Americans melds into the Boston Tea Party. "We were willing to die/ to forge our dream," the accompanying verses begin. Like many passages, it has multiple interpretations. In opening, Walter Dean Myers writes, "No words here have been penned lightly, no flag waved mindlessly," and his introspective reflections offer proof. Closing notes explicate quotations that lace the pages and identify figures shown in the artwork. It's best appreciated by readers with some knowledge of American history, but few will be unmoved by this stirring and provocative collaboration. Ages 7–12. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Ida B. Wells: “Masterful.

ALA Booklist

Praise for Ida B. Wells: “Accessible to younger elementary audiences.

Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

Gr 5–10—As Whitman turned to free verse to explore the character and complexity of America in the 19th century, so Walter Dean Myers employs it in the 21st. From the Lakota Indian watching his father "in the curl of legend" and the refugee whose freedom dream "lay just beyond the next wave" to the diverse assembly of famous figures depicted in concluding montages, the Myers grapple with the meaning of the country's founding principles. They pair big ideas with specific individuals (real or imagined) culled from a wide swath of peoples. The imagery is beautifully crafted, and the tone allows space for readers to draw conclusions; while acknowledging imperfections, Myers reserves judgment. Relevant quotes are interspersed, adding perspective and sometimes irony. Christopher Myers's paintings cross the gutter in earnest panoramic scenes that vary in effectiveness. There are graphic images (a wounded soldier) and aesthetically pleasing scenes, such as a woman carrying bricks on her head next to Chinese immigrants laying railroad track; the lines offer a pleasing contrast to the opposing curve of the adjacent steel overpass. Several of the compositions, however, try to do too much as they line up literal examples from the text's large time spans. A Guinean iron worker, surrounded by daylight, is next to a man reading and others praying inside a mosque. When Mae Jemison flies in on the opposite page against a starlit sky, it feels disjointed. Notes explain the back story and identify individual portraits. A thought-provoking and largely accomplished work for students of American history.—Wendy Lukehart, Washington DC Public Library

School Library Journal

The Myers team shares their heartfelt and stirring vision of an America flawed but filled with promises and dreams. Like weavers connecting warp and woof, father threads lofty words and son paints seamless pictures. Each double-page spread contains a brief poem and usually a quote from a relevant document or person. A mural rendered in pastels spans both pages. Homage is paid to young people; Native Americans; immigrants from Europe, Africa and Asia; laborers, protesters, soldiers and performers. "We were willing to die to forge our dream" writes Walter Dean Myers while Chris Myers paints snarling dogs attacking civil rights protesters and colonial patriots throwing tea into Boston Harbor. Juxtaposed with this are the opening line to the Constitution and King George's words granting independence. In another tableau, a slave shows his terribly scarred back, Indians lie dead at Wounded Knee and Japanese-American citizens stand behind barbed wire, but Americans learned to "light the darkness with the blazing torch that is the Constitution."Backmatter credits each quotation and identifies the people in each painting. The poetry and the paintings will be an excellent jumping-off point for discussions. Readers will take every opportunity to pause and reflect and trace their fingers along the glorious artwork. Stunning. (Picture book/poetry. 8 & up)

Kirkus Reviews

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