Everywhere Beauty Is Harlem: The Vision of Photographer Roy DeCarava

In an image-centered picture book that summons the senses, the creators navigate Harlem through the lens of photographer Roy DeCarava (1919–2009). Muted watercolor illustrations lend a snapshot quality to each structurally composed scene, beginning with a metropolitan sidewalk: “It’s five o’clock. Work is over. Roy’s time is his own now.” Camera in hand on the subway, he photographs a dozing man; aboveground, a boy drawing with sidewalk chalk: “SNAP!” An artist displaying paintings on the street next catches DeCarava’s eye, then a mother photographing her son. Brief descriptive snippets, peppered with quotations from the book’s subject, accompany each image, exploring how the photographer “sees so much beauty everywhere,” from a crumpled soda can to “Black and brown bodies/ shining bright” in the wash of a fire hydrant. DeCarava captures it all—and so too do Golio and Lewis—in this luminous tribute. Includes more about the subject and a bibliography. Ages 7–10. (Jan.)