"How To Build a World
Words poured out of Maya and she felt revived.
A whole world of words had been growing inside.
She believed people became what they said,
so she chose words carefully,
planted powerful affirmations in her world.
Words like forgive, like kind.
Words like brave, like powerful, like phenomenal.
Words like faith, like dream, like free."
This tribute to a truly powerful voice in American literature is both moving and memorable. From her birth in 1928 through 1993 when she read her 'poem for the nation' as a special request from President Bill Clinton at his inauguration, Ms. Watson's free-verse poetry chronicles the momentous events of a life of love, hurt, and courage.
Her loving family moved from St. Louis to California for a better life, which was forever changed when her parents' marriage ended. Sent to Arkansas to live their grandmother, life was mostly happy. A return to their mother proved traumatic when Maya was abused by her mother's boyfriend. What followed was a period of selective mutism when Maya said not a word for five years.
The children were returned to their grandmother, whose love and compassion meant everything to them. A family friend gave Maya the courage to try her voice again ... and the rest is history. Words bottled up for too long poured from her. Her life took another turn when she gave birth as a teenager to a son, and had to find ways to provide for him. She turned to performances in singing and dancing, and traveling the world to entertain others.
Her life in Harlem allowed her voice to be heard, and close friendships with James Baldwin and Martin Luther King Jr.to flourish. They wrote, they organized, and they worked for change. A move to teach in Ghana became home before returning to America once more.
"Maya knew that home was never one place, with one kind of people.
Home was anyplace her voice could be heard.
Home was anyplace there was love."
The assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. led to a short period of keeping her words inside once more. Her friend Jimmy Baldwin pushed her to tell her stories, to write them down, to let the world hear what she had to say. She did that and so much more.
Watercolor and collage artwork by the brilliant Bryan Collier provides portrayals of Maya at every stage of her life. Using light, pattern and telling imagery he fully complements the book's words. Each spread is significant and worthy of careful examination as her story is read and revisited.
A timeline, and personal notes from both author and illustrator conclude.
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