REVIEW OF A CROWN OF STORIES: THE LIFE AND LANGUAGE OF BELOVED WRITER TONI MORRISON


A. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Weatherford, Carole. Illustrated by Khalif Thompson. A CROWN OF STORIES: THE LIFE AND LANGUAGE OF BELOVED WRITER TONI MORRISON. New York City, NY: Quill Tree Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 9780062911032.


B. PLOT SUMMARY
Chloe Ardelia Wofford is an African American girl growing up in Lorain, Ohio. Her family teaches her how to read, and she thrives on the written and the spoken word. In her home, she is surrounded by books. In elementary school she is the only African American in her class, and she is the first one to learn how to read. In high school she is in the school drama club and on the debate team. She graduates from high school and goes to Howard University in Washington D.C., the first in her family to go to college. At Howard University she changes her first name to Toni. She finds success both academically and socially. She encounters racism and learns of the civil rights movement. She becomes a college professor and marries another college professor. That marriage ends and she moves to Syracuse, New York with her two sons to take an editorial job. She becomes the first African American to hold the position of senior editor in the publishing business. She promotes African American writers and their works. She writes her first novel, The Bluest Eye, at this time in her life. She puts together a collage book called The Black Book. Inside The Black Book is an excerpt of an article from which her later book, Beloved, was inspired. She writes other books including Jazz, Paradise, and Home. Eventually, she becomes the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. She is invited to dinner at the White House with our first African American President of the United States. Finally, she is at her home beside the Hudson River where she will “… conjure stories beyond our imagination.”    

C. CRITICAL ANALYSIS (INCLUDING CULTURAL MARKERS)
This book tells the story of African American writer Toni Morrison. From the beginning of the book to its end, the references to Africa American culture are detailed and numerous. The first sentence of the story talks about the “Great Migration”, the time of movement for over 6 million African Americans from the racist Jim Crow southern United States to the more free and tolerant northern United States. Toni Morrison’s parents were part of this Great Migration.

Diversity and hardships are common themes in this book. The author describes the multicultural atmosphere of the steel mill where Toni Morrison’s father worked with immigrants from “… Italy, Poland, and Greece.” The book also describes how her father had to work three jobs to make ends meet, a common occurrence for African American families of the time. Other hardships include having to gather coal that had fallen off trains to take to heat their home, and their frequent moves from home to home, from apartment to apartment. The author describes Toni Morrison’s departure from home to go to Howard University. This was, and is, a popular university for African Americans to attend. It is one of many Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU.) Just as it is told in the book, she really did change her name at the university because so many people had trouble pronouncing her given name.

The “paper-bag test” that the author mentions actually did exist at Howard University and other colleges and universities (and other places, as well.) For those who have not heard of it, it was a form of discrimination, “colorism”, practiced against African Americans. At Howard University it was practiced against darker-skin African Americans by lighter-skin African Americans. Toni Morrison attended Howard University in the early 1950’s where she found out about the paper-bag test, but the practice at Howard University goes as far back as the 1920’s, and was believed to be a practice found in New Orleans in the 1800’s. Vestiges of the practice continue to pop up in modern society. As recently as 2003 a settlement was reached between a restaurant and one of its ex-employees for discrimination practiced by a lighter-skin African American manager against a darker-skin African American subordinate employee. Sadly, the paper-bag test still exists today in practice, if not literally.

When Toni Morrison attended Howard University there were still legal discriminatory practices in the United States, including in Washington D.C. The part in the book where Toni Morrison takes a “Whites-Only” sign to send home to her family to show them that racism also can be found in Washington D.C. may have been an example of poetic license, but it did indeed reflect existing laws of the time. While there may have been less discrimination in the northern United States than the southern United States, segregation still existed in many places in Washington D.C., not least of which was in the transportation industry. There were separate places on buses for African Americans and white Americans. The book mentions Dr. Martin Luther King (“Dr. King”) as being a leader for civil rights. It was Dr. King who led the pivotal Mongomery Bus Boycott that began the civil rights movement in 1955, shortly after Toni Morrison had graduated from Howard University. The book says that regarding Toni Morrison’s place in the civil rights movement, “In the freedom struggle, a pen will be your sword.” The book tells of the time when Toni Morrison worked as an editor. She used her position to promote African American writers and activists. While she was an editor, she compiled documents, photographs, news articles, and other artifacts of African American history into a manuscript that she named The Black Book. One of the news clippings that she included in it became the origin of her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Beloved.

The illustrations in this book, created by Khalif Thompson, are beautifully rendered in a style reminiscent of a collage, much like the way that Toni Morrison helped put The Black Book together. Khalif Thompson used “… acrylic, oil paint, collage, handmade paper, and stencils on canvas board to create the paintings for this book.” The artwork is a fitting tribute to The Black Book and the life and all the works of Toni Morrison.

The end of the book contains some supplementary material that helps the reader understand the life of Toni Morrison. The author points out that it wasn’t until she was writing her biography of Toni Morrison that she came to find out that Toni Morrison had actually been the driving force behind the creation of The Black Book. The reason for that was that when the book was published, Toni Morrison was not credited with being the compiler of everything in the book.

There is also a timeline at the back of the book that details many important events in Toni Morrison’s life, from the day of her birth in 1931 to her death in 2019, and so many great events in between. There is also a bibliography of works that the author used to create this biography.            

 

D. AWARDS AND REVIEW EXCERPTS
Horn Book: Starred Review “Both the reverent art and the text provide an intimate glimpse into Morrison’s remarkable life story.”

Kirkus: Starred Review “Weatherford skillfully weaves together the various aspects of the writer’s life in a lyrical account that flows and reveals her rich contributions. Weatherford emphasizes the role of listening, grounding Morrison in her family and community. Making wonderful use of collage, Thompson’s evocative paintings enhance the text, beginning with a striking cover image. Transcendent and deeply resonant.”

School Library Journal: “This combination of vibrant images with compelling text gives readers a visceral experience. In addition to being a useful mentor text on the second-person voice, this is an excellent addition to biography collections and displays highlighting Black and Women’s History months.”

Booklist: “An excellent book to read to younger children. Weatherford's narrative and Thompson's works also importantly put Morrison's life and work in context of her times. Public and school libraries will want to have this work in their collections.”


E. CONNECTIONS
This story helps the reader learn what life was like for an African American struggling to make a place for herself in the United States.

Here are some other picture books about the African American experience:

Duncan, Alice F. OPAL LEE AND WHAT IT MEANS TO BE FREE: THE TRUE STORY OF THE GRANDMOTHER OF JUNETEENTH. ISBN 978-1200231256

Ramsey, Calvin. RUTH AND THE GREEN BOOK. ISBN 978-0761352556

Coles, Robert. THE STORY OF RUBY BRIDGES. ISBN 978-0439472265

Shabazz, Ilyasah. MALCOLM LITTLE: THE BOY WHO GREW UP TO BECOME MALCOLM X. ISBN 978-1442412163

Hannah-Jones, Nikole. THE 1619 PROJECT: BORN ON THE WATER. ISBN 978-0593307359

Weatherford, Carole B. UNSPEAKABLE: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE. ISBN 978-1541581203

Alexander, Kwame. THE UNDEFEATED. ISBN 978-1328780966

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