Hey Black Child

Perkins’s 1975 poem, originally written as song lyrics (and sometimes misattributed to Countee Cullen or Maya Angelou), features compact, rhythmic language that’s both avuncular and commandingly rhetorical (“Hey Black Child/ Do you know who you are/ Who you really are”). Collier (City Shapes) uses a combination of dense, burnished watercolors—the texture often mimics acrylics—and photo collage to imagine the possibilities open to empowered African-American children. Each stanza begins with a close, almost photorealistic portrait of a confident, happy child; subsequent pages show how the child’s passion, coupled with a proud sense of heritage, leads him or her to become someone who helps make “your nation/ what you want it to be.” A girl with eager, bespectacled eyes and a bright smile stands beside a telescope and knows she can become an astronaut; a boy inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement sees a future in politics. Perkins’s poem has always made for a stirring recitation; new and old fans will find that Collier’s images do full justice to it. Ages 4–8. Illustrator’s agent: Marcia Wernick, Wernick & Pratt. (Nov.)