"In Brooklyn
in the summer
not so long ago
grown-ups always had someplace to be
or some kind of work to do, but the minute
school ended, us kids were free as air.
Free as sun. Free as summer."
While the kids in Brooklyn have been out of school for weeks now, our kids are just getting their summer holiday started. I wonder if they will be spending their days the way Jacqueline Woodson and her friends did when they were set free. It was a different time; one that I remember vividly.
In Brooklyn, in summers not too far past, the kids played outside all day. On their way home on that last day of school, they were already experiencing the joy of water hydrant play.
"But we had to run through the water,
bookbags and all. Because our teachers' final words had been
Have a good summer.
Our only plan on that last day of school
was to take what they said seriously."
Days passed, filled with the joy of being together from breakfast until dinner. They played games, skipped double dutch, raced, jumped, and spun tops in the street all day long. When someone got hurt, an older kid would soothe them with stories about being the same age and the accidents endured. They used huge cardboard boxes, imagination, and everyone's help to create play spaces, then called for money for the ice cream truck.
"Then we shared with the friends with no money
because some days the ones with no money were us."
In this, their third collaboration, Leo Espinosa creates a world of amazing diversity and energy. His artwork takes us back to the summers of the late 60s and the 70s when kids wore bell bottoms, tube socks, and sneakers, and spent untold time close to home while always outside with their friends. The joy felt is evident on every open-mouthed, smiling face. Together with Jacqueline Woodson's ebullient text, readers discover what life was like before tablets, phones and television keep them indoors, and often not getting to know other children from their neighborhood.
Questions are sure to follow a reading of this book about the summers of old, and the adventures you remember and can describe. Careful now!
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