Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Ashley Bryan

Wow ... you come to work every day hoping to be inspired by the words or art of an author or illustrator, and then, POW! a genius like Ashley Bryan shows up and completely blows you out of the water!

Mr. Bryan was the keynote speaker at our annual Anne Carroll Moore Lecture here at the Donnell Central Children's Room. His latest work, Let It Shine: Three Favorite Spirituals, is included as one of the NYPL's "100 Titles for Reading and Sharing" for 2007, a list that is celebrated by having one of the honorees speak to librarians, publishers, authors, illustrators, and fans.

Now, you can't even call his presentation a "speech", it was poetry as performance art, man. He brought to life and gave voices to poems that he had illustrated in the past, poems by Nikki Giovanni, Eloise Greenfield, Langston Hughes, and himself. He made the characters jump off the page, be it a landlord demanding money from a tenant, or a very, very slow snail.

A beautiful dude, and amazingly spry for a man in his mid-80s! If you ever have a chance to hear him speak, stop at nothing! Otherwise, check out any of his webcasts on the Library of Congress website. The Ella Jenkins of poetry, no?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello Warren!
How can I email you?
I am a librarian, and musician in a kids music rock band and would love to chat and network!
Thanks for the AWESOME BLOG!!
-Laura Cayer
(email: sadashadevi@yahoo.com)

www.myspace.com/poprockets4
www.poprocketsmusic.com

Michaele Sommerville said...

Thank you so much for this terrific site! Post some more soon, and Happy New Year!

Corey Jenks said...

Hi Warren, I love your blog. Great stuff.

Are you open to checking out and reviewing new CD's? I've just created a children's CD that's educational and entertaining, and parents enjoy as much as their kids. And it's all about animals.

You can visit www.jenksmusic.com to learn more, and if you send me your info, I can mail you a copy of the CD.

Thanks,

Corey Jenkins
corey@jenksmusic.com

Anonymous said...

Excellent site! If you like the Wiggles, check out The Wowzers:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/ilaidm

Keep up the great work!