The Creation

The biblical story of creation is retold here in resonant, inspiring verse set against a jubilant background of bold colors. As an endnote explains, the poem, which originally appeared in Johnson's God's Trombones (1927), was inspired by a sermon delivered in 1919 by a black country preacher in Kansas, and pays tribute to the old-time black preachers who, wrote Johnson, gave slaves and their descendants ``their first sense of unity and solidarity.'' The very solid God of this text ``batted his eyes, and the lightnings flashed-- / He clapped his hands, and the thunders rolled.'' Commanding verses lilt in the style of a gospel song--a poem of joy, wonder and celebration. Golembe ( Why the Sky Is Far Away ) reflects this sense of thanksgiving in stylized paintings whose flatness recalls folk art. Rainbow-hued fish swim in abundance, animals of all kinds bound and gambol in harmony, God himself is a shimmering red mosaic. Johnson omits the specific creation of woman (``God thought and thought, / Till he thought: I'll make me a man''), but Golembe shows both man and woman as black silhouettes rising from the clay. This unusual picture book is especially successful for its lucid presentation of complex ideas and for its attention to African American cultural traditions. Ages 4-8. (Sept.)