The Horn Book Magazine, January 1st, 2003
illus, by E. B. Lewis
48 pp. Orchard/Scholastic 11/02 ISBN 0-439-35243-6 16.95 (Intermediate)
Grimes skillfully employs first-person testimonial verse to give young readers a fully realized portrait of African-American aviator Bessie Coleman. At Coleman's death, Grimes invites twenty individuals to a fictionalized wake and, in valedictory monologues, has each remember Bessie and the forces that shaped her life. Bessie's father tells about leaving the family when his daughter was "jus' a chile." Her mother recalls how she wanted Bessie to "first learn the wisdom of the Lawd, / and then, the...
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