Only the Best

The Exceptional Life and Fashion

of Ann Lowe

A TRUE TALE WITH

A CHERRY ON TOP

Chronicle Books

(pub.10.18.2022) 56 pages

Author: Kate Messner & Margaret E. Powell

Illustrator: Erin K. Robinson

Character: Ann Lowe

Overview:

" ONLY THE BEST tells the powerful story of the ground-breaking Ann Lowe, who grew up in a small Alabama dress shop and became the first nationally-known African American fashion designer. Sought after by millionaires and movie stars, her designs walked the red carpet and graced the wedding of Senator John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier.

At a time when the world around her thought African Americans deserved no more than second-class treatment, Ann expected no less than very best for herself."

Tantalizing taste:

" Ann folds up her feelings and tucks away her tears. She works day and night, the way her mother taught her. Only the best will do.

Measure, snip, pin up the hems.

Thread the needle.

Pull the stitch tight.

Embroider the last lovely bloom."

And something more: The Author's Note explains "Today, some of [Ann Lowe's] high-society gowns are in the collections of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. It's a wonderful place to visit if you'd like to see Ann's beautiful gowns and her signature fabric flowers in person."

Going Places

Victor Hugo Green and His Glorious Book

A TRUE TALE WITH

A CHERRY ON TOP

Quill Tree Books

(HarperCollins Publishers)

(pub.10.4.2022) 40 pages

Author: Tonya Bolden

Illustrator: Eric Velasquez

Character: Victor Hugo Green

Overview:

" As a mail carrier, Victor Hugo Green traveled across New Jersey every day. But with Jim Crow laws enforcing segregation since the late 1800s, traveling as a Black person in the US could be stressful, even dangerous.

So in the 1930s, Victor created a guide—The Negro Motorist Green-Book—compiling information on where to go and what places to avoid so that Black travelers could have a safe and pleasant time. While the Green Book started out small, over the years it became an expansive, invaluable resource for Black people throughout the country—all in the hopes that one day such a guide would no longer be needed."

Tantalizing taste:

" As much as Victor Hugo Green loved his book, he yearned for the day

when it would no longer be needed,

when ugly, hateful signs came down,

when all across America,

hotels and motels,

inns

cottages,

campsites,

cafes,

diners,

and fancy-fine restaurants

welcomed everyone.

.The day sundown towns ceased to be."

And something more: Illustrator Eric Velasquez's dedication: "For all those brave African American souls who have traveled throughout America, with the simple hope of arriving safely at their destination free of trauma or terror."

A Song for the Cosmos

Blind Willie Johnson and Voyager's Golden record

A TRUE TALE WITH

A CHERRY ON TOP

Creative Editions

(pub. 8.9.2022) 32 pages

Author: Jan Lower

Illustrator: Gary Kelley

Character: Willie Johnson

Overview:

" Blues guitarist Blind Willie Johnson led a hardscrabble life, but in 1977, NASA's Voyager spacecrafts were launched, each carrying a golden record to introduce planet Earth to the cosmos, and his song 'Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground' became the defining anthem. The tale weaves together elements of Johnson's biography with an account of how a team of astrophysicists, writers, and artists created the golden record for the Voyager mission."

Tantalizing taste:

" He recorded again, thirty songs in all, but his hymn of woe sold more than any other. Lowdown in tired farm towns or homesick for country roots in crowded Northern cities, people heard Willie sing their own hearts, their own loneliness and pain.

Radio stations played his music. The twang of his guitar electrified revival meetings, and his bluesy voice brought churchgoers to their feet."

And something more: The Back Matter of the book explains that "Carl Sagan [professor of astronomy] wrote that Johnson's song seemed 'haunting and expressive of a kind of cosmic loneliness' and voiced 'a longing for contact with other beings in the depths of space, a musical expression of the principal message of the Voyager record itself."