Review of the Day: Outspoken Paul Robeson by Carole Boston Weatherford, ill. Eric Velasquez

Outspoken Paul Robeson, Ahead of His Time: A One-Man Show
By Carole Boston Weatherford
Illustrated by Eric Velasquez
Candlewick Press
$18.99
ISBN: 9781536212976
Ages 9-12
On shelves April 16th

The other day a woman of my acquaintance, who happens to be a rather famous individual in her own right, was in my library looking through the children’s biographies. She told me that a friend of hers had suggested that she write her own picture book autobiography and she was looking for ideas. I was happy to help, and we soon settled on Sonia Sotomayor as an excellent example of someone who has received a whole slew of different kinds of biographical variations. It was while I was paging through all the different styles that I got hung up on two different thoughts. First, it’s astounding to me just how many ways a person’s life story can be told to children. From birth to death, or just taking a selection of their life. With photography, realistic art, or cartoonist representations. With input from the subjects’ family (or not). And just as I was circling that idea, another came to me. Why are some people granted what seems like a new picture book biography every year, while others haven’t a single one to their name? Looking at the sheer amount of work Carole Boston Weatherford put into her latest biography, Outspoken Paul Robeson, Ahead of His Time, I can think of at least one answer for one person. If you’re going to do a biography of a complicated subject, and bring any kind of nuance to the telling, then you better saddle up and pour your heart and soul into the effort. You’re going to have to make a book like this one.

On the grave of Paul Robeson are the following words: “The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative. O Lord, I’ve done what you told me to do.” From birth to death, we watch the life of one of those rare souls that seem capable of literally doing anything they set their minds to. Athlete. Law school. Actor. Activist. Singer. The man faced prejudice at every turn but kept pushing himself. Then came the Red Scare and suddenly he had Eleanor Roosevelt, along with the rest of the country, denouncing him. But rather than back down, Robeson dug in. Mood swings, a suicide attempt, and a turn in a sanitarium led to the end of his life. Still and all, his was a great one, and this book fills its pages with lyrical verse to try and capture just a smidgen of the man. An extensive Time Line, Source Notes, Bibliography, and even Copyright Acknowledgments round it out.

The mistake I made with Outspoken Paul Robeson came when I sat down to read it over a standard lunch period at work. There was nothing about its construction to suggest that I would need to take any more than just ten to fifteen minutes with it. I’d been drawn to it mostly because of the subject matter, as well as the fact that the Weatherford/Velasquez pact is tried and true. It was to my very great astonishment that I started reading and realized that Weatherford wasn’t going halfsies on this. Not that I expected her to, but I wasn’t prepared for the set-up, like a play, with a prologue, acts, and final scene. It was after I’d finished it, processed it, and decided that I liked it very much that I realized that in spite of its picture book size, this book is actually being marketed for 9 to 12-year-olds. Once that information clicked, everything else fell into place. I suddenly understood how a book with this much content and these many complications could be written for kids.

It helps that Carole Boston Weatherford doesn’t really have a set style when it comes to her picture book biographies. Her multi-award winning Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer has only the barest of similarities to other books she’s done like Before John Was a Jazz Giant or I, Matthew Henson: Polar Explorer. It’s as if each subject she focuses on dictates the type of book they’ll receive. Once can imagine that faced with the sheer enormity of Robeson’s life (and for all that it’s extensive, this book only scratches the surface) Weatherford understood early on that this would be the longest of her picture book bios to date. It would require a deft hand. I don’t think a new author for kids could have done it, to be honest. With her experience, Weatherford’s method of breaking the text into acts, ending in tragedy, but with a touch of hope as well, mimics Robeson’s own years in the theater.

She also sets the book in the first person. Now if you know me then you know that I go a little wonky in the noggin when I encounter factual books with fictional elements. My biggest personal bugaboo? Fake dialogue. But for whatever reason, first person narratives in biographical texts don’t bother me in the same way. I guess that may be because when it comes to books for kids, I want the kids to be aware of what is and what is not the truth from the start. You put in fake dialogue with quotation marks around it (unitalicized) and the kid is going to think that exact thing was said at that exact moment in history. But if you’ve a book by a woman written in the voice of a man, her name is one of the first things you see on that cover and title page. “By Carole Boston Weatherford”, it says, clear as crystal, plain as day. This, for whatever reason, strikes me as fair. Strange but true.

I’ve been telling my fellow librarians that one thing I didn’t expect to find in this book was a visual image of someone receiving electroshock therapy (something I only recognized because of watching One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest years ago). Add in the fact that this comes alongside information that Robeson slit his wrists in a Moscow bathroom, his son accused American spies of drugging him, and the fact that his health never improved and that’s the end of the book, kids! Of course, that’s how books from other countries end for children. I’ve often found that books from Europe, for example, often do not fear sad endings, whereas American children’s books seem to almost require happy ones. Weatherford takes big risks with this book and the payoff, I hope, will be immense. Because what elevates this book beyond the usual 4-7 year-old set isn’t just the content, but the very nature of Robeson’s life. The man had a legacy that is brilliantly summarized in two lines of 26 descriptive adjectives and labels, sorted alphabetically. These range from roles (“Brutus”, “Othello”) to compliments (“All-American”, “Champion”) to insults (“Insane”, “Un-American?”). It’s as if Weatherford took these words and systematically wove them into each section of the book in order to write it, then plucked them out again.

Weatherford’s illustrators often prove to be just as variegated as her subject matter. Looking over the artists she’s collected over the years, it’s a veritable who’s who of the greats. Of course, as I scrolled through her books, there was one name in particular that kept popping up again and again. He illustrated the aforementioned Matthew Henson book. He did the art for Weatherford’s, Racing Against the Odds, The Story of Wendell Scott. Jesse Owens: Fastest Man Alive? That was him too. For whatever reason, while Weatherford might flirt with a Floyd Cooper or an Ekua Holmes once in a while, she always returns to Eric Velasquez in the end. Little wonder that she’d call upon him for what is undeniably her most ambitious book to date.

For all that this title required a lot of Weatherford, this may be the best work I’ve seen from Velasquz as well. The book opens with the shot of a movie projector, beaming its light into the gray. But what follows after this is less a movie than a performance of its own. We turn the page to a tuxedoed Robeson, photographs of his ancestors blown up large behind him. From there Velasquez uses his hyper-realistic style to move everywhere. His young Robeson really does physically resemble his older self (no small feat). Then there’s his use of white space. Because Weatherford has given him so much text for these pages, Velasquez opts to make it as readable as possible. His characters dance around the words, but are never in the same place in any two-page spread. Sometimes Velasquez will fill an entire page with images (his Mussolini is perfect). Sometimes just one or two. Then there are times when he’ll go in for a close-up. There is, near the end of the book, a moment when Paul Robeson’s face nearly fills an entire page. He’s looking directly at the reader and his expression is hard to read. It feels like he’s telling us something, or maybe expecting something of us. You’d think that would be the last image, but we get one more. An older Paul Robeson in chair and a robe, a cup of coffee in his hand. If Weatherford has given Robeson his dignity with this telling, Velasquez has given him some peace.

When Robeson asks at the end, “What will history write of me?” this book is the answer. A title for adults could do no better. My friend that is looking to do her own autobiography may or may not go through with the project, and that’s all right. I am firmly of the belief that writing nonfiction for kids is the most difficult of jobs, requiring authors of particular skills. It takes time and patience and a great deal of research to get it right. This book gets it right. When kids pick up this book, they’ll meet all the facets of the man on the page and be able to make up their own minds about him. What they won’t do after reading this book is forget him. If you are looking for a complex biography written for kids, step this way. Consider Outspoken Paul Robeson, Ahead of his Time: A One-Man Show. You’ll get no better education than by reading this book.

On shelves April 16th

Source: Galley sent from publisher for review.

Filed under: Best Books, Best Books of 2024, Review 2024, Reviews