ellington was not a street

ellington was not a street
by Ntozake Shange, illustrated by Kadir Nelson, 2004. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. (0689828845).

Author Website: http://www.ntozakeshange.org/home.html

Illustrator Website: http://www.kadirnelson.com/

Media: oil

Awards and Honors: ALA Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration , ALA Notable Children's Books , Capitol Choices List (DC), CCBC Choices (Cooperative Children's Book Council), Chicago Public Library's Best of the Best , Coretta Scott King Award, Kansas State Reading Circle Primary Titles, NAACP Image Award Nominee, NCTE Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts, NYPL 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing, Once Upon a World Award (Simon Wiesenthal Center & Museum of Tolerance), Parents' Choice Award

Annotation: A personal tribute to poet Ntozake Shange's childhood home and the influential men who gathered there.

Personal Reaction/ Discussion of Artwork:
      Poet Ntozake Shange's childhood home was frequented by some of the most influential African Americans of the 20th century. From W.E.B. DuBois, to "Dizzy" Gillespie, Paul Robeson and the eponymous Duke Ellington, these "men/ who changed the world" are remembered in Shange's poem and expressively depicted in Kadir Nelson's oil illustrations.

     If Shange's poem comes off a bit solemn- as an ode to what used to be and now is "mere memory", Nelson's illustrations are a celebration. His portraits are beautifully rendered in oil with special attention given to the features and expressions of his subjects. We see this extraordinary group of men sing, mingle and converse (about exactly what, we are left to imagine, but we can infer they are likely matters of significance). Nelson's oil illustrations are rich with color and detail. On the cover of ellington was not a street the author appears as a pig-tailed young child of seven or eight, holding an LP copy of Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo"- the song from which the title of Shange's original poem is taken. Opposite the title page the author appears again, this time as a teenager seated on a piano bench while holding the same record. Observant readers will notice on the first page of the book that the woman on Ellington Street with the red umbrella is also, in fact, our narrator. Within the body of the poem, Shange is depicted as a very young child, perhaps two or three years old at the most, dwarfed by the musicians, politicians and activists who visit her home. Other reviewers have pointed out that the age of the narrator in the bulk of the illustrations is at odds with the age of the intended audience of the book. Nelson takes artistic liberties here; by depicting Shange as a tiny child, the men are transformed into grand and imposing figures- literally as well as figuratively.

Curriculum Connection: Middle School- Language Arts/ poetry