Looking at Keeping the Night Watch I figured it was going to be like Nikki Grimes or Nikki Giovanni. However, what it is like is a mix of both Grimes, Giovanni and Jason Reynolds, Jewell Parker Rhodes, Jacqueline Woods and what I think Kwame Alexander sounds like.
I was unfamiliar with Hope Anita Smith before getting this gem in my shiny green package (see Go Sports Ball! review). However, unlike the others, this was not a new book but from 2008 (paper 2014). I am hoping this means there is a new edition coming out. Of course, it could just mean they knew I liked poetry and/or wanted to promote a book of poetry for poetry month.
Keeping the Night Watch is prose poetry aimed at aged 10-14. It is an intense story of “being a man” in a traditional format (the man is the head of the house, he takes care of the family). But C.J. is not ready to forgive his father after he left the family; especially since he has been the man of the family. He has read to his sister, helped his brother with “man things” and continues to do so, even after their father is back.
This is not a one shot read and it is not for everyone. Most likely this would be a book you use in a classroom teaching prose poetry. Or if you are teaching African-American authors and artists.
E. B. Lewis’s illustrations are realistic with a hint of abstract. I am assuming watercolor art is the medium. Yet, if it is not, the “bleeding of the colors” recalls this effect. They are the perfect match to the story.
Unknown to me, Keeping the Night Watch is the sequel to The Way a Door Closes and while Keeping the Night Watch is a stand-alone title, it probably would have helped to have known a few pieces of the back story.