Bryan Collier – Cannonball Read 17

What I read to my students this week: Two versions of “We Shall Overcome”

We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song by Debbie Levy and Vanessa Brantley-Newton

We Shall Overcome by Bryan Collier

January 21, 2025 by stegolily Leave a Comment

Every year around Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I teach my elementary music students the song “We Shall Overcome,” and we discuss the song’s history in conjunction with the Civil Rights Movement. I use Debbie Levy’s book, “We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song” to introduce the song and spur a discussion. This book traces the history of the song from a spiritual sung by enslaved workers, to a hymn popular in Black churches, to a beloved freedom song of the Civil Rights movement, […]

Packed a punch with love

Love Is Loud: How Diane Nash Led the Civil Rights Movement by Sandra Neil Wallace

November 22, 2023 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

One of the things that always gets to me is that the Civil Rights movement was not “ancient history” but “recent history.” In fact, so recent that Diane Nash of Love Is Loud: How Diane Nash Led the Civil Rights Movement is only 85 years old (in 2023). This means that she is only about 12 years older than my father. And while that is a bit of a gap when you are in your early teens and someone is in her 20’s, that still […]

“A Black girl whose voice chased away darkness, ushered in light.”

Maya’s Song by Renee Watson

June 16, 2022 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

Maya’s momma was right. Maya was a preacher, a teacher. A Black girl whose voice chased away darkness, ushered in light. Maya’s Song is an introduction biography of Maya Angelou. Done in prose poetry, (most likely inspired by Angelou’s own writing style. Though I am afraid I have only read a handful of her writing and therefore, not well enough versed to say yes or no), this picture book shows Angelou’s life poetically. Renee Watson was inspired by Maya Angelou’s works and that […]

Fathers and Sons

Knock Knock by Daniel Beaty

August 20, 2021 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

I was hoping for something different when I saw the cover of Knock Knock by Daniel Beaty. I was not completely sure what I excepted, but I thought it would be about the waiting for the knock and the joy we feel after we open it for that “surprise” on the other side. Be that surprise is a new sibling, a parent coming home from work or school or was in the service. Or the joy of having a grandparent or sibling that lives far […]

From Football field to the Art Gallery

July 16, 2018 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

Who is Ernie Barnes? Some people might know him from the football field and some might know him from the art galleries. I know him from Between the Lines: How Ernie Barnes Went from the Football field to the Art Gallery by Sandra Neil Wallace (and illustrated by Bryan Collier). Barnes was a young boy growing up in North Carolina. Shy, not good with words and a love of art set him apart at an early age. However, he was unable to partake in the […]

Elephant & Piggie Like Reading, Do you?

May 16, 2018 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

The author behind the Elephant and Piggie books and the Pigeon of driving a bus fame books, (Mo Willems) has created a beginning reader series, Elephant & Piggie Like Reading! Each one is illustrated by a different popular children’s illustrator. Each book is a book that Elephant and Piggie are reading and not them as the main characters. One of those books is The Itchy Book! With the text by Willems (in his signature style) and the illustrations by Leuyen Pham this new series keeps […]

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