We are America Book Review by Walter Dean Myers

 

Written by Walter Dean Myers

Illustrated by Christopher Myers

Published by HarperCollins Children's Books in 2011

ISBN- 978-0060523107

Plot Summary: This book is a history of america told through the form of poetry. The author starts before the settlers arrive with the Native Americans and their view of what the United States looked like before settlers came and ends with the present day of everyone coming together to make the country look the way it does. The story includes people from different backgrounds including African Americans who haven't been taken to America yet, the history of the Civil War and the people that died for our freedom, and the immigrants that came during the industrial revolution to help create the country that we live in now. 

Analysis: The author uses a free verse style of poetry that highlights immigrants especially and how we are all Americans even though we come from very diverse backgrounds. He highlights the important events that helped shape the United States past and is hopeful for a better future to come. Each of the pages and verses help narrate the vision the author has for explaining the country's past. The illustrator does a good job creating the images to fit alongside the verses but he also takes his own artistic liberties to further develop the story. Especially important are the last couple of pages with the woman draped in the American flag and the illustration with all the important people like FDR and Martin Luther King Jr. who helped create our nation. 

Reviews:
Kirkus Book Review 

The Myers team shares their heartfelt and stirring vision of an America flawed but filled with promises and dreams.

Like weavers connecting warp and woof, father threads lofty words and son paints seamless pictures. Each double-page spread contains a brief poem and usually a quote from a relevant document or person. A mural rendered in pastels spans both pages. Homage is paid to young people; Native Americans; immigrants from Europe, Africa and Asia; laborers, protesters, soldiers and performers. "We were willing to die to forge our dream" writes Walter Dean Myers while Chris Myers paints snarling dogs attacking civil rights protesters and colonial patriots throwing tea into Boston Harbor. Juxtaposed with this are the opening line to the Constitution and King George's words granting independence. In another tableau, a slave shows his terribly scarred back, Indians lie dead at Wounded Knee and Japanese-American citizens stand behind barbed wire, but Americans learned to "light the darkness with the blazing torch that is the Constitution." Backmatter credits each quotation and identifies the people in each painting. The poetry and the paintings will be an excellent jumping-off point for discussions. Readers will take every opportunity to pause and reflect and trace their fingers along the glorious artwork.

Stunning. (Picture book/poetry. 8 & up)

Connections: Students can look up the famous quotations that are in the back of the book and try to find 3 more quotes that fit alongside them that go along with the founding of our country. 
Have students research one of the historical events found in the book and present something that they found to a small group. 

More Books by Walter Dean Myers: 
Jazz ISBN 9780823421732
Here in Harlem ISBN 9780823422128
Looking Like Me ISBN 9781606840016
Harlem ISBN 9780590543408

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