Parents' Guide to Go Tell It: How James Baldwin Became a Writer

With moody oil paintings and lyrical writing, this picture biography brilliantly captures the fitful unfolding of a literary life. The complex emotional terrain of that life is handled with uncommon grace in Go Tell It: How James Baldwin Became a Writer. Especially poignant is Baldwin's search for love and learning in a family held down by racism and poverty, by narrow religious views and justifiable anger. Especially poignant is Baldwin's search for love and learning in a society shaped by racism and from a family of contradictions. There's his strict, easy-to-anger preacher stepfather, whom Baldwin comes to understand better as a young adult, and his warm, loving mother who urged him to read and go to the best schools. Though technically a picture book, the poetic writing style, heavy with metaphors and sophisticated sentences, is better suited for older elementary students and even middle schoolers, who will take much from this richly rendered Baldwin biography. Younger readers could certainly access the messages about the power of words and the resilience required to overcome obstacles when experiencing the book as a read-aloud and/or in the classroom. It might be a meaty prompt for older kids to write personal narratives, and it might serve as a worthy introduction for young teens ready to encounter Baldwin's work itself. Regardless of how it is read, this homage to James Baldwin is a triumph in its own right.