The Art and Heart of Corita Kent
A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
Candlewick Press
(pub.11.5.2024)
40 pages
Ages 4 - 8
Author: Dan Paley
Illustrator: Victoria Tentler-Krylov
Character: Corita Kent
Overview:
" Frances Kent always loved making things. When she joined the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, she took the name Corita—meaning little heart—and devoted her life to what mattered most to her: art and religion.
As an art teacher, Sister Corita emphasized practice and process over the final product and taught her students to experiment and break the rules.
As a religious person, she turned her faith into concrete action and spoke out about the injustices she saw in the world. In the height of post-war consumerist culture, Corita, a contemporary of Andy Warhol, turned advertising on its head and wrote a new kind of scripture."
Tantalizing taste:
"Through her art, Sister Mary Corita engaged with the overlapping artisti``c and social revolutions of the 1950s and '60s to spur change, change that she knew would take love, and hard work. 'To e fully alive,' she once said, 'is to work for the common good.'"
And something more: The author, Dan Paley, shared in the Author's Note: Corita's "work had a profound influence on the visual identity of the 1960s and has greatly influenced the fields of graphic design, advertising, and pop art, yet she remains largely unknown even in those fields. This is what inspired me to learn more about her and, ultimately, to write this book... I discovered a teacher whose method with students of all ages opened their eyes to what was possible, not just on the canvas but in their communities and in society as a whole: an artist who used color, perspective, and the written word to make the common uncommon; and an activist whose message of love and peace empowers us for the work ahead."
How John Lewis Got His Library Card -
and Helped Change History
A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
Viking Books for Young Readers
(pub. 1.7.2025)
32 pages
Ages 4 -8
Author: Pat Zietlow Miller
Illustrator: Jerry Jordan
Character: John Lewis
Overview:
" All John Lewis wanted was a library card, but in 1956, libraries were only for white people.
That didn't seem fair to John, and so he spent a lifetime advocating for change and fighting against unfair laws until the laws changed. Finally, black people could eat at restaurants, see movies, vote in elections, and even get library cards."
Tantalizing taste:
"Wherever he was, John worked for equal rights. He even wrote about it.
Then John returned to his hometown library. The one that told him "No" when he was sixteen [in 1956].
He gave a speech. Hundreds of people came. When John finished, the librarians gave him a library card. Forty-two years after he'd first asked for one.
And something more: Pat Zietlow Miller shared in the Author's Note: "John was inspired by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whom he'd heard speak about nonviolent civil protests. John didn't get his card that day, but his request - and the letter he wrote afterward stating that the library should be for everyone - was his first protest."
Dressmaker and Poet, Myra Viola Wilds
A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
Cameron Kids/Abrams
(pub. 1.14.2025.)
32 pages
Ages 4 - 8
Author: Nancy Johnson James
Illustrator: Diana Ejaita
Character: Myra VIola Wilds
Overview:
" What dreams do you carry? Myra Viola Wilds dreamed of opportunity.
She left her home in rural Kentucky for the city, learned to read and to write, and became a dressmaker. She hand-stitched gorgeous gowns. She worked so hard she lost her eyesight, and her world went dark. But those well-loved stitches turned into words, and one night Myra woke in the middle of the night and wrote a poem she called “Sunshine.”
She kept writing. She wrote the lush green, sweet-corn yellow, cerulean blue, sunshine-y world from memory, collecting her poems into a book called Thoughts of Idle Hours, published in 1915."
Tantalizing taste:
"Dream a dress that is a poem,
like Myra would have made.
Words with color, form, and song.
Lines stitched short, curved, and long.
Dream a dream when you struggle,
between a painful past and a hopeful tomorrow.
Remember when light began to fade.
Myra's art could still be made."
And something more: The book beings with one of her poems:
"Thoughts" by Myra Viola Winds
What kind of thoughts now, do you carry
In your travels day by day
Are they bright and lofty visions,
Or neglected, gone astray?
Matter not how great in fancy
Or what deed of skill you've wrought;
Man, though high may be his station,
Is not better than his thoughts.
Catch your thoughts and hold them tightly,
Let each one an honor be;
Purge the, scourge them, burnish brightly,
Then in love set each one free."
