A Gift From Greensboro
by Quraysh Ali Lansana
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Pub Date Oct 11 2016 | Archive Date Jan 01 2017
Description
An illustrated poem about two best friends, one white and one black, in the 1970s—when eating together at a lunch counter on a lazy summer afternoon is no big deal.
A Gift from Greensboro is an elegy, a celebration of the magic of childhood friendship, and a meditation on growing up in the wake of the sit-ins that ushered in the Civil Rights Movement. Paired with eye-catching, layered illustrations, this poem recognizes that true friendship knows no boundaries and that love drives positive change. Read alongside Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney and Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins by Carole Boston Weatherford for a well-rounded lesson about a significant, igniting moment in our country's civil rights history.
A Note From the Publisher
Illustrator: Skip Hill
Title: A Gift from Greensboro
Binding: Perfect bound, paperback (durable 12-pt cover; French flaps); 6.5 x 8.5
Publication Date: October 2016
ISBN: 9780997221916
Price: $13.95
Publisher / Distributor: Penny Candy Books / Itasca Books
Advance Praise
“An elegant, important story—lovingly and beautifully told.” –Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming
"I'm delighted to find a book that shows the next generation of American children one of the positive changes that have taken place in this country over the last 50-odd years: friendships like this one. It's nice to find these two friends making history in their own ways." —Marylin Nelson, A Wreath for Emmett Till
“A Gift from Greensboro is an elegant, elegiac time capsule of a childhood friendship innocently thriving in the midst of a racial history lost to time, commerce and gentrification. In gently charged lines, Quraysh Ali Lansana’s enthralling poem is brought to majestic life through Skip Hill’s vibrant visual acuity, capturing a time and place peopled in history, nostalgia and memory where detailed sketches of faces, figures, body parts and iconic imagery is peppered with the finest black-and-white meticulous detail and splotches of vibrant color, creating rich juxtapositions of text and imagery belying racial realities unable to interrupt genuine human connection. A Gift for Greensboro is a gift for those of us who value our first deep-seated relationships and long for our innocence, even as it is trapped in moments of precarious political poignancy where memory eludes nostalgia enough to defy the turmoil of history teeming around us as we ride our bikes, play, and share milkshakes and burgers at once-segregated dime store lunch counters."—Tony Medina, The President Looks Like Me & Other Poems
"A Gift From Greensboro is just that...an accessible, layered, and utterly moving treasure for children and their parents. Lansana's gorgeously illustrated poem tells a story about what was, what is, and what's possible as it pertains to race relations in a country that is split at the root. Its tale of interracial friendship against a backdrop of historic division is a perfect tool for parents who wish to engage in dialogues with their children about the world that they are inheriting, which is to say, a world they have the power to change." —Samantha Thornhill, poet for Odetta: The Queen of Folk
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9780997221916 |
| PRICE | $13.95 (USD) |
Featured Reviews
Gloria C, Educator
This book is an illustrated version of a short poem inspired by the African American writer's childhood visits to the Greensboro Woolworth's lunch counter with his white best friends in the mid-1960s. By itself, the poem is not enough of an introduction to Civil Rights issues or to the Greensboro sit-ins of 1958, but it can be part of a larger unit on poetry and civil rights. I particularly enjoyed the author's afterword explaining how he wrote the poem.
Nicole M, Reviewer
This simple poem is a lovely account of friendship triumphing in spite of an oppressive backdrop of racial hatred. The illustrations fit the subdued, introspective tone perfectly. And, although it feels a little sombre, it also has a strong feeling of hope. I loved it.
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