{"id":20494,"date":"2013-08-07T08:00:26","date_gmt":"2013-08-07T13:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=20494"},"modified":"2013-08-08T15:56:47","modified_gmt":"2013-08-08T20:56:47","slug":"kadir-nelsons-paintings-and-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/kadir-nelsons-paintings-and-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Kadir Nelson’s Paintings and Words"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"nelson<\/a>I’ve been a fan of Kadir Nelson’s illustrations for years without realizing it. \u00a0Nelson is an illustrator and writer who has created some of the most beautiful and powerful books of the past fifteen years. Primarily focusing on African-American history and heroes, Nelson has proven to be adept at writing and illustrating books about challenging subjects gracefully and with age-appropriate illustrations and language. <\/span>He illustrated the Caldecott Honor books<\/span>\u00a0Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom<\/a><\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>by Carole Boston Weatherford and\u00a0Henry’s Freedom Box<\/a><\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>by Ellen Levine, as well as books by Spike Lee, Will Smith, Nikki Grimes, Sharon Robinson (Jackie Robinson’s daughter) and Michael Jordan.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

With the release of Nelson’s newest picture book, Nelson Mandela<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, I took another look at his 2008 release\u00a0We are the Ship: The Story of Negro League<\/a><\/strong> Baseball<\/strong><\/a><\/em>. \u00a0Both books are written and illustrated by Nelson and feature his signature resplendent paintings. \u00a0\u00a0We are the<\/strong> Ship<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0tells the story of baseball’s segregation from the start of the Negro League baseball in the 1920s, until Jackie Robinson crossed over into the majors in 1947. \u00a0This non-fiction book is told in 9 chapters (labeled as innings) and reads as a collective voice. \u00a0The writing is inspiring without being overly sentimental and smart while still being accessible.<\/p>\n

\"we<\/a>Nelson Mandela<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>is a much shorter work, but no less compelling. \u00a0The prose is fluid and poetic, and there are few stories more powerful than Mandela’s. \u00a0Nelson made some stylistic decisions that really make this picture book stand out. \u00a0The front cover of the book is a striking painting of Mandela’s face (above)<\/em>, with all of the book’s text on the back cover. \u00a0Light is used prominently throughout the book, from the cover shot of Mandela’s face bathed in light with a black background to the use of a rising sun as the story tells of Mandela’s birth to the absence of light while Mandela was in prison. \u00a0This use of literal light to convey the figurative impact Mandela has made on so many people helps give visual cues to readers, while the text does a remarkable job filling in the rest of the story for young readers. \u00a0You can find more books written and illustrated by Kadir Nelson<\/a> at the Davenport Public Library!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been a fan of Kadir Nelson’s illustrations for years without realizing it. \u00a0Nelson is an illustrator and writer who has created some of the most beautiful and powerful books of the past fifteen years. Primarily focusing on African-American history and heroes, Nelson has proven to be adept at writing[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1],"tags":[2353,2352,330,2354,1172,1697],"class_list":["post-20494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-reference","tag-african","tag-african-american","tag-history","tag-illustrations","tag-nelson-mandela","tag-painting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-5ky","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20494"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20644,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20494\/revisions\/20644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}