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Black History Month is a special period of celebration and commemoration—a time for looking back at the individuals and events that made progress possible. In honor of this special time, BookPage has rounded up a group of new picture books that chronicle some of the highlights of the African-American legacy.

MAKING SPIRITS SOAR
In Touch the Sky: Alice Coachman, Olympic High Jumper, Ann Malaspina revisits a thrilling chapter in American sports—the story of the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal. Born in Albany, Georgia, to impoverished parents, Alice Coachman seems destined to defy gravity. Leaping over tree roots and shooting baskets with towering boys, practicing the high jump with a crossbar made of branches and rags, Alice, as depicted in Eric Velasquez’s dynamic paintings, seems always to be airborne. Her father disapproves of her tomboyish behavior, but when she’s invited to join the Tuskegee Institute’s famous Golden Tigerettes track team, Alice develops skills that take her to the 1948 London Olympics. There she soars farther than she ever imagined, setting a new Olympic high jump record. Malaspina employs a spirited prose style to tell the story of Alice’s extraordinary career.

A LEADER GETS HIS START
Proving that knowledge really is power, Lesa Cline-Ransome’s Words Set Me Free: The Story of Young Frederick Douglass recounts the rise of one of America’s greatest orators. Frederick Douglass spends his early childhood on a Maryland plantation where slaves caught reading are severely punished. When he’s transferred to the home of the Auld family in Baltimore, Frederick gets his first taste of formal education. Kind-hearted Missus Auld gives him lessons in the alphabet, and Frederick is soon obsessed, practicing in secret with a brick and chalk. At the age of 12, he buys his first newspaper and encounters words like “abolition” and “liberty.” Against all odds, Frederick educates himself and—later on, at great risk—his fellow slaves. By unlocking the secrets of language, he arms himself for the future. Featuring beautifully nuanced pictures by the author’s husband, James E. Ransome, this moving book comes with a clear message: Education is the key to success.

OVATION FOR A LEGEND
With Jazz Age Josephine, Jonah Winter offers an irresistible homage to a groundbreaking performer. Born dirt poor in St. Louis, Missouri, young Josephine Baker spends part of her childhood in the city slums, where she’s taunted by other kids. Using theatrics as a survival tactic—clowning and dancing to hide her hurt—she makes a little money and eventually joins a traveling show as a dancer, but the blues follow. At one point, she’s so broke, a bench in Central Park serves as her bed. At the age of 19, Josephine takes off for Paris, where she finds her artistic footing and gets a taste of what liberation is like. Embracing her race and blossoming as a performer, she hits the heights of fame but never forgets her St. Louis roots. Winter’s blues-inflected writing style is perfectly complemented by Marjorie Priceman’s bright, impressionistic visuals. Brimming with infectious energy, Winter’s book is a showstopper from start to finish.

HOME RUN HERO
Showing how team spirit in sports helped break down racial barriers, Chris Crowe’s Just as Good: How Larry Doby Changed America’s Game is a wonderful depiction of the brotherhood of baseball. It’s the fall of 1948, and the city of Cleveland is humming with anticipation for game four of the World Series—a contest between the city’s own Indians and the Boston Braves. An African-American boy named Homer narrates the events of the big day, as he and his parents gather around the radio to listen to the game. Homer’s hero, Larry Doby, the first black player in the American League, will be stepping up to the plate. When Doby hits a home run in the third inning, he makes history, becoming the first African-American ballplayer to do so in the World Series. Mike Benny depicts Homer’s wide-eyed excitement through luminous illustrations, while Crowe seamlessly weaves facts and stats from the actual game into the storyline.

VERSES OF FREEDOM
Ntozake Shange is a beloved African-American playwright, poet and novelist. With Freedom’s
a-Callin’ Me, she delivers a timeless collection of verse inspired by the Underground Railroad—dramatic and impassioned poems about slaves dreaming of escape, the white folks who help them and the trackers who trail them. Shange writes with wonderful authenticity and an ear for syntax, conjuring up a group of unforgettable narrators who experience hope, danger and loss on the road to a better life. The book’s title poem eloquently describes one man’s plan to flee, to “mix myself way low in the cotton . . . wind myself like a snake / till ah can swim ’cross the stream.” The poems are filled with arresting imagery—slave hunters leading ferocious hounds, overseers wielding their whips—which Rod Brown brings to life in his sensitively rendered paintings. Throughout the book, Shange offers different perspectives and stories to create a multifaceted look at the secret system that changed so many lives. This is a wonderful introduction to an important chapter in African-American history—and to the narrative possibilities of poetry.

A REMARKABLE DAY
Written and illustrated by acclaimed author Shane W. ­Evans, We March is a stirring account of a history-making event as seen through the eyes of one African-American family. On August 28, 1963, more than 250,000 people came together for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, an episode forever inscribed on the American memory thanks to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Evans’ tale brings the momentous day down to a personal level, as the family prepares to march, painting signs, praying and joining the procession to the Lincoln Memorial. Evans’ brief, poetic lines have a simple majesty that reflects the significance of the occasion. His vibrantly illustrated story gives readers a sense of what it might have been like to join the crowd taking crucial steps on the road to freedom.

Bedtime books are worth their weight in gold if they work. The good ones—like these five new picture books—can help parents and children ease the tricky transition from day to night, light to dark and together to alone.

IN SHINING ARMOR
Owen Davey’s Night Knight transforms every element of a typical, boring bedtime routine into something fantastical. “For a knight like me, going to bed . . . is a great adventure,” begins the story, with one half of the sentence on the left page accompanying a boy wearing PJs and a colander helmet, and the other half of the sentence over on the right, with the same boy, same yawn, but dressed in full knightly getup. As he heads down the hallway and climbs the stairs, each picture combines the real and the fantastic: a telephone table and a forest, a hall closet and a snow-peaked mountain. The artwork, self-described as “contemporary and nostalgic,” calms in warm, muted brick tones, even as the imagined action busies itself with mythical creatures and noble exertions. Preschool and kindergarten children and parents will dub this daydream royally engaging.

NATURE’S WAY
Sweet Dreams by Rose A. Lewis, illustrated by Jen Corace, is a nature lullaby that works by color-soaked stealth. Although it begins and ends with the same four-line wish for “my precious child” whose “dreams be long and sweet,” thefocus is not so much on the child being put to bed as it is on the nighttime world waking outside the window. Mr. Moon, “who’ll watch you through the night,” also watches owlets in a nest and a tiny mouse family, while moonflower blossoms eclipse spent morning glories. Butterflies trade places with gray moths as crickets, possums, raccoons, frogs and other nocturnal animals “come alive in darkness.” Night, then, is something natural and nothing to fear. Lilting verse and predictable rhymes keep the mood soft but open to interaction. Young children can supply the last word of each page, or succumb entirely (and tiredly) to sleep.

A STUBBORN HOLDOUT
The daughter-father team of Kate and Jules Feiffer has created another winner with No Go Sleep! In a marvelous economy of word and ink, they transform what is one of the most frustrating scenarios of all time—the sleep-resistant baby—into its own delightful antidote. “One night when the stars were out and the moon was bright, a baby said, ‘No go sleep!’ “ Mom, Dad and the rest of the adjacent world, working in a gentle and benevolent conspiracy, try to persuade baby it is really, truly time. The sun, moon and stars weigh in, as do birds, frogs, bunnies, the tree above the house and “a car driving by” (which says, “Beep, beep, sleep, sleep”). Birds, frogs and bunnies reassure baby that he won’t be missing much. The dog, however, is already asleep. Resistance is lovingly futile, and the abrupt ending is a happy one for all concerned.

FAMILY OUTINGS
Good Night, Laila Tov by Laurel Snyder, illustrated by Jui Ishida, uses simple, rhyming verse to describe a family on a camping trip. “Good night, laila tov” is the restful refrain after each day’s adventures in the natural world: A sunset sky sings it, a nighttime road rumbles it, a forest storm shushes it, and ocean waves whisper it. Laila tov happens to be Hebrew for “good night,” just as the sweet family in the luminous illustrations happens to be Jewish. The particular becomes universal with takeaway themes of discovery (and stewardship) of the environment, family time and gratitude. All families should be this lucky: to plant tree seedlings, gather berries, collect treasures in a jar, watch deer in a field and tuck each other into bed so tenderly. The youngest listeners will enjoy guessing the predictable rhyme at the end of each couplet.

IT’S TIME!
Adam Mansbach’s Seriously, Just Go to Sleep is a hoot. Exhausted parents need a chuckle at the end of an impossibly long day, and this G-rated version of the surprise bestseller Go the F**k to Sleep will deliver it. If you were too scandalized to pick up a copy of the adult book, try this one. If you bought the first version and hid it so well that you will never find it, this one is 100 percent safe. Even toddlers will appreciate Ricardo Cortés’ illustrations of cheeky peers wide awake amid sleeping lions, farm animals and all manner of obligingly restful critters. The rhythmic text describes natural, sleepy scenes, but each ends in a plea for the child at hand, the one still awake right now, to join the club already. This insistent change of key is funny on any level: sweet, sarcastic or just plain tired.

Every year I look forward to the spring crop of children’s poetry books, which always brings a bouquet of creativity. This year is no exception.

UNEXPECTED FINDS

The Arrow Finds Its Mark: A Book of Found Poems, illustrated by Antoine Guilloppé, is a fascinating collection sure to captivate young and old alike. Just leave this book out in plain sight and watch what happens!

What is a “found” poem, you might ask? It’s a piece of already existing text that is then “made” into a poem, as explained by editor Georgia Heard, who collected these examples. Such text might be a line from Twitter, a note found on a floor, a photo caption, a sign or graffiti.

For instance, here’s a poem called “Pep Talk” that consists of phrases from a box of OxiClean detergent:

   Keep cool.
   See a brighter solution.
   Mountain freshness.
   Boost your power!

This little book makes for fun perusing. There’s a poem created by crossword puzzle clues, another from a dictionary entry and another from the book titles on a young girl’s shelf. This is a collection guaranteed to inspire family fun or give students a new way to look at poetry.

SEND THE KIDS OUTSIDE!

Run, jump, blow bubbles or stomp in a puddle: That’s the refreshing theme of A Stick is an Excellent Thing: Poems Celebrating Outdoor Play. Prolific poet Marilyn Singer doesn’t disappoint in this celebration of classic children’s fun, which is likely to remind adults of their own experiences hosing friends with sprinklers, rolling down hills and playing hopscotch or hide and seek.

Singer captures the endearing exuberance of childhood with poems like “Really Fast”:

   Skateboard races,
   pigeon chases,
   running bases.
   Backyard dashes,
   racecar crashes,
   puddle splashes.
   Everything’s a blast
   when you do it really fast!

LeUyem Pham’s illustrations are the perfect accompaniment to these lively poems. Her colorful pages are full of smiling kids who laugh, leap and lunge. But be forewarned: This book isn’t a great choice for bedtime, because the poems will make readers want to head right out the door.

Outdoorsy kids are likely to adore a new poetry collection with the engrossing title Nasty Bugs. Children’s poetry connoisseur Lee Bennett Hopkins has collected another winning swarm of poems, with names sure to entice kids, such as “Stink Bug,” “Ode to a Dead Mosquito” and “Barbed and Dangerous.”

Will Terry’s illustrations are truly glorious, with a spread on the stink bug swirling in a fiery background of orange, red and yellow as a huge green bug leers at the reader, with fumes rising. Terry brings readers eye to eye with a litany of malevolent creatures, such as fire ants, boll weevils, lice and bedbugs.

Many mothers will (not!) appreciate the first verse of Amy Ludwig Vanderwater’s poem, “Lice”:

   Ridiculous Pediculus
   O tiny vampire louse
   You crawl from head
               to head
                       to head
   from house
              to house
                      to house.

Not only are these poems fun, they also contain facts that will keep kids entertained, educated and grossed out, all at the same time. In addition, an explanatory section at the end contains a short but intriguing entry for each bug mentioned.

For more outdoor poems, dip into the exceptionally clever A Meal of the Stars: Poems Up and Down. Dana Jensen has written a series of “vertical” poems, with each line containing just one word. Some of these poems read from top to bottom, while others read from bottom to top. Kids will love this form and no doubt want to try to write their own.

Jensen writes about such upward and downward topics as giraffe necks, popping balloons, rockets blasting into space and kites soaring in the wind. Tricia Tusa’s illustrations add the perfect touch of humor, personality and motion.

DOUBLE TAKE

When my identical twin girls were born 13 years ago, I dearly wish I’d had Take Two! A Celebration of Twins. This is a treasure chest of poems for parents, siblings and twins, sprinkled here and there with interesting facts. (Imagine, for instance, this hard-to-believe item: “In the 1700s, Mrs. Feodor Vassilyev of Shuya, Russia, had sixteen sets of twins. She also gave birth to four sets of quadruplets and seven sets of triplets!”)

Written by the dynamic children’s literature duo of J. Patrick Lewis (a twin himself) and Jane Yolen, these fun poems address many aspects of twinhood, including the novelty, fun and frustrations. Best of all, the poems are both heartfelt and humorous. Consider these lines from “What’s It Like to Be a Twin?”:

   ’Cause a twin’s a double rainbow
   Or the fork that goes with the knife.
   He may wear around the edges,
   But he’s guaranteed for life.

This is a beautifully designed book as well, with layouts pleasing to the eye and doubly adorable illustrations by Sophie Blackall. Even though my twins become teenagers this month, I’m keeping this book on our shelves for years to come.

BOOK SENSE

BookSpeak!: Poems about Books is a lively, lovely literary collection. Laura Purdie Salas writes verses about things like coming to the end of a book, falling asleep while reading and an avid reader begging for a sequel. One particularly clever poem asks readers to pay attention to the indexes of books and says: “So I’m telling you, kid: / ignore the rest of the book. / All you really need is me.”

Josee Bisaillon’s illustrations are varied and wonderful, adding an extra dimension of fun and whimsy.