Marilyn Nelson

Something says find out why rain falls, what makes corn proud and squash so humble, the questions call like a train whistle... George Washington Carver was determined to help the people he loved. Born enslaved in Missouri, he left home in search of an education, eventually earning his master's degree. When Booker T. Washington invited Carver to start the agricultural department at the all Black-staffed Tuskegee Institute, Carver found his calling....

Photographs and a poem bring readers on center stage with the African-American ballerinas from the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

The author reflects on her childhood in the 1950s and her development as an artist and young woman through fifty poems that consider such influences as the Civil Rights Movement, the "Red Scare" era, and the feminist movement.

"Young Lubaya is happiest when she's drawing, often behind the sofa while her family watches TV. There, she creates pictures on the backs of her parents' old protest posters. But when upsetting news shouts into their living room, her parents need the posters again. The next day her family takes part in a march, and there, on one side of the posters being held high, are Lubaya's drawings of kids holding hands and of the sun shining over the globe--rousing...