Saturday, August 13, 2016

Now Sheba Sings the Song by Maya Angelou


Rating: 


I do not know the chronological order of when Maya Angelou wrote these children books but if this was written after Kofi and His Magic (which in my imagination she did) then she dedicated herself hard on this book and it's a total success both poem and the artwork.

The difference with this children book is Tom Feelings. Decades ago he was in Africa working as an illustrator and other jobs and he constantly was drawing African women and never both to published it or make a story of it. As the years went by he never touched those drawings until one day he decided he wanted to make a story of the iconic images of beautiful African women.

He suggested that Maya Angelou should write the poem/story because they were friends and the expert who can describe the emotions and thoughts of what it means to be an African woman. Maya Angelou had lived in Ghana for years and studied in the University so it was interesting how faithful she was when it came to Tom Feelings artwork. 

The illustrations are stunning and the only issue I had with this book was I wish the people who were in charge of matching the illustrations with the poem should have done a better job of feeling the spaces and not making it into a jumbo mess of too many drawings and not enough words and vice versa. 

I felt the emotional impact of Maya's words and made me appreciate a culture that is completely different from my daily life. I was proud to read this book because I saw the effort, the attention to details and the precise words carefully used to craft this book. Excellent work Maya!

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