A SONG FOR GWENDOLYN BROOKS: A Review and Picture Book Giveaway

Congratulations to Danielle H. who for a second week in a row won a book from my blog. The Wizard's Daughter is on its way to her!

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Back in November I promised you a review of another book by Alice Faye Duncan. Several blog posts later and in anticipation of National Poetry Month in April, I'm making good on that promise. 

Before today you may not have heard of Gwendolyn Brooks. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1950 making her the first African American to win a Pulitzer.  Fittingly, Ms. Duncan chose to celebrate Ms. Brooks work by writing her biography in verse and interspersing it with Brooks' own poetry.

The year is 1925. 

Gwendolyn Brooks is eight years old. 

Gray bursts of smoke hide the yellow sun. 

Can flowers grow without sunlight? 

Gwendolyn leans on the front yard gate. 

Gwendolyn is unsure.

As a young girl, Gwendolyn translates her observations and thoughts into poetry.

Her parents encourage her writing but a teacher accuses her of plagiarizing her poems. Her teacher retracts her charge, but Gwendolyn is angry and pens a poem which ends up being prophetic:

FORGIVE AND FORGET

If others neglect you,  

Forget, do not sigh. 

For, after all, they'll select you 

In times by and by. 

If their taunts cut and hurt you, 

They are sure to regret 

And if in time, they desert you 

Be sure to forgive and forget.  (Gwendolyn Brooks, 1928)

Her parents recognize her talent and give her time to develop her talent; her poems are published in The Chicago Defender. 

Gwendolyn writes, revises, studies, and wins prizes for her poetry. She marries Henry, has a son they name Junior, and writes.

SING a song for Gwendolyn Brooks 

She whittles her sonnets with perfect grace. 

Like Edna St. Vincent Millay and Robert Frost.

Gwen paints poems with paintbrush words 

And Gwen takes home a Pulitzer Prize.

  

GIVEAWAY AND EXTRAS

This book would be an excellent curriculum resource. Educators, feel free to use this lesson plan.

You'll find some of Gwendolyn's poems here. 

I'm giving away a copy of A SONG FOR GWENDOLYN BROOKS (a part of Sterling Children's Books "People who Shaped Our World" series) in conjunction with the March issue of Talking Story on WOW Women in History. Leave one comment here and I'll enter your name once. Leave a comment through Talking Story and you'll earn a second chance to win. Giveaway ends April 1. Please leave your email address if you are new to my blog.