You Gotta Meet Mr. Pierce!: The Storied Life of Folk Artist Elijah Pierce

by Chiquita Mullins Lee (Author) Jennifer Mack-Watkins (Illustrator)

You Gotta Meet Mr. Pierce!: The Storied Life of Folk Artist Elijah Pierce
Reading Level: 2nd − 3rd Grade

A picture book biography about the barber shop of woodcarver Elijah Pierce, recipient of the highest folk art honor in the United States.

"Creeeeak!" goes the screen door to self-taught artist Elijah Pierce's barbershop art studio. A young boy walks in for an ordinary haircut and walks out having discovered a lifetime of art.

Mr. Pierce's wood carvings are in every corner of the small studio. There are animals, scenes from his life, and those detailing the socio-political world around him. It's this collection of work that will eventually win Elijah the National Heritage Fellowship in 1982 just two years before his death. But the young boy visiting the shop in the 1970s doesn't know that yet. All he knows is: "You gotta meet Mr. Pierce!"

Based on the true story of Elijah Pierce and his community barber shop in Columbus, Ohio, this picture book includes cleverly collaged museum-sourced photos of his art and informative backmatter about his life. With engaging text by Pierce to the Soul! playwright Chiquita Mullins-Lee and Christopher Award-winning author Carmella Van Vleet, it's illustrated with striking Japanese woodblock by Jennifer Mack-Watkins. A new addition to vital Black art history!

Select format:
Hardcover
$18.99

Kirkus

An intimate encounter with an artist who should be better known.

ALA/Booklist

Starred Review
Thoughtful and enlightening

Publishers Weekly

In a fictionalized story centering wood carver and folk artist Elijah Pierce (1892-1984), a narrating child and their father head into Pierce's barbershop. "You gotta meet Mr. Pierce," Dad says as they enter the shop, where "Wood carvings. They're everywhere! And laughter. Razors and roaring laughter. Scissors and stories. Tonics and tunes on the radio." As the child receives a haircut and connects with Pierce over an uncertainty about what to draw, Mullins Lee and Van Vleet use the duo's conversation to relay Pierce's early experiences carving "anything I could think of" after receiving a pocketknife as a boy. Next, Pierce shows father and child his carvings--animal figures, personal scenes that reveal biographical details, and the only wooden Bible storybook of its kind--before giving the child a carved elephant figurine, and some inspiration. Action words ("DRAPE /SNAP," "SAND/DUST") evoke movement and expertise throughout, while Mack-Watkins's use of woodcut textures brings the subject's medium to the fore. Back matter includes creators' notes and further material. Ages 4-8. (Jan.)

Copyright 2022 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

Review quotes

PRAISE FOR YOU GOTTA MEET MR. PIERCE! 

* "The conversational framing imbues this picture book biography with warmth and intimacy ... There's plenty of fodder here for themed storytimes on Black history and art." —The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, starred review. 


Chiquita Mullins Lee
Carmella Van Vleet is a former kindergarten teacher who now writes full-time. She's the author of over a dozen books including the award-winning middle-grade novel Eliza Bing Is (Not) A Big, Fat Quitter and the picture book To the Stars! The First American Woman to Walk in Space (co-authored with astronaut Kathy Sullivan). Carmella lives in Columbus, Ohio.

Chiquita Mullins Lee is an Arts Learning coordinator at the Ohio Arts Council (OAC) where she manages Ohio's Poetry Out Loud and Arts Partnership programs. She is a former teaching artist in creative writing on the OAC teaching artist roster, hosted the Emmy-award winning program Traditions: Ohio Heritage Fellows, and has served on the Arts Education review panel for the National Endowment for the Arts.

Jennifer Mack-Watkins is a printmaker whose work investigates power through the complexities of themes like womanhood, beauty, body image, and gender roles. Her solo exhibition "Children of the Sun" at Brattleboro Museum has been featured in the New York Times, Vogue, and Essence Magazine. Read more about her work at mackjennifer.com.
Classification
Non-fiction
ISBN-13
9780593406502
Lexile Measure
-
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Kokila
Publication date
January 31, 2023
Series
-
BISAC categories
JNF007010 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Biography & Autobiography | Art
JNF018010 - Juvenile Nonfiction | People & Places | United States - African-American
JNF006040 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Art | History
Library of Congress categories
-

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