There Was a Party for Langston

by Jason Reynolds (Author) Jarrett Pumphrey (Illustrator)

Reading Level: 2nd − 3rd Grade

New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Jason Reynolds's debut picture book is a snappy, joyous ode to Word King, literary genius, and glass-ceiling smasher Langston Hughes and the luminaries he inspired.

Back in the day, there was a heckuva party, a jam, for a word-making man. The King of Letters. Langston Hughes. His ABCs became drums, bumping jumping thumping like a heart the size of the whole country. They sent some people yelling and others, his word-children, to write their own glory.

Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, and more came be-bopping to recite poems at their hero's feet at that heckuva party at the Schomburg Library, dancing boom da boom, stepping and stomping, all in praise and love for Langston, world-mending word man. Oh, yeah, there was hoopla in Harlem, for its Renaissance man. A party for Langston.

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Kirkus

Starred Review
A bar set stratospherically high and cleared with room to spare.

ALA/Booklist

Starred Review
Who knew these esteemed literary lions could cut a rug like that?

School Library Journal

Starred Review

PreS-Gr 3--Reynolds and the Pumphreys sharpen all their tools for this one, throwing word art like clouds into the sky and regaling readers with scene after scene of the finest guests--Amiri Baraka, Maya Angelou, and so many more--who have come to Harlem's Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture for one reason: to celebrate the opening of the Langston Hughes Auditorium in February 1991. And this is some party. There is music. There is food. There is the feeling that everyone who is anyone is on board. Reynolds explains in an author's note that he was inspired to dig a little deeper by a black-and-white photograph of Baraka and Angelou doing the boogie at the event. He calls Hughes the king of letters, "whose ABC's became drums, / bumping jumping thumping/ like a heart the size of the whole wide world" and the pictures bump jump thump along with the text. Joy like jazz falls off the page into readers' laps with every spread flashing back through time to Hughes's Ohio childhood, Harlem, America, the world, interiors, exteriors, the party, the people, the famous Black faces, and more. "And all the books on the shelves were listening and looking at all the people, shimmying, full of dazzle./ Don't nobody dance like a word maker./ And all the best word makers were there." This book is an absolute textual and pictorial glory of people, places, word-making, song-singing, storytelling, history-making moments, and images that are unforgettable. VERDICT A beguiling, bedazzling collaboration that will send children to the shelves to learn more about all the names within, especially Hughes.--Kimberly Olson Fakih

Copyright 2023 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review

The creators' high-stepping testament to the enduring cultural influence of Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes (1901-1967) begins with the promise of a party: "a jam in Harlem to celebrate the word-making man." Rhythmic lines from Newbery Honoree Reynolds, making his picture book debut, aptly describe Hughes as "the best word maker around./ Could make the word MOTHER feel/ like real warm arms wrapped around you." In illustrations rendered with handmade stamps, Ezra Jack Keats Award Honorees the Pumphrey brothers apply stylized typography throughout, as on a page in which mother makes up the figure of a parent embracing a child. In the run-up to the party, pages hint at Hughes's ability to turn words into laughter that "rang out/ for years and years." And so, in 1991 at the NYPL's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, "a fancy-foot,/ get-down,/ all-out bash" is held in the poet's honor. There, the works of other Black writers peer out from book spines, and literary successors Maya Angelou and Amiri Baraka dance "like the best words do, together." Melding celebratory text and kinetic, graphical art, the creators underscore the power of the subject's poetry to move and to inspire. Figures are portrayed with brown skin throughout. An author's note concludes. Ages 4-8. Author's agent: Elena Giovinazzo, Pippin Properties. Illustrators' agent: Hannah Mann, Writers House. (Oct.)

Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

Review quotes



Jason Reynolds
Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a Newbery Award Honoree, a Printz Award Honoree, a two-time National Book Award finalist, a Kirkus Award winner, a two-time Walter Dean Myers Award winner, an NAACP Image Award Winner, and the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors. Reynolds is also the 2020-2021 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. His many books include When I Was the Greatest, The Boy in the Black Suit, All American Boys (cowritten with Brendan Kiely), As Brave as You, For Every One, the Track series (Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu), Look Both Ways, and Long Way Down, which received a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Honor. He lives in Washington, DC. You can find his ramblings at JasonWritesBooks.com.
Classification
Non-fiction
ISBN-13
9781534439443
Lexile Measure
-
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Atheneum Books
Publication date
October 03, 2023
Series
-
BISAC categories
JNF018010 - Juvenile Nonfiction | People & Places | United States - African-American
JNF007030 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Biography & Autobiography | Literary
JNF016000 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Curiosities & Wonders
Library of Congress categories
African Americans
Picture books
Parties
Libraries
Poets
JUVENILE FICTION / Holidays & Celebrations /
Hughes, Langston
JUVENILE FICTION / Imagination & Play
Biographical fiction

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