Product Description

When it was released in 2004, Harlem Stomp! was the first trade book to bring the Harlem Renaissance alive for young adults! Meticulously researched and lavishly illustrated, the book is a veritable time capsule packed with poetry, prose, photographs, full-color paintings, and reproductions of historical documents. Now, after more than three years in hardcover, three starred reviews and a National Book Award nomination, Harlem Stomp! is being released in paperback.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #355947 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780316034241
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up-Hill explains the violence, frustration, and dreams of economic opportunity that led to the African-American migration to the North at the beginning of the 20th century. He describes the sense of pride, responsibility, and rights engendered by participation in World War I and the white resentment that resulted in such violence that James Weldon Johnson "dubbed the summer of 1919 the `Red Summer'" in response to the bloodshed. The author discusses why blacks settled in Harlem and how it became the "Mecca of the New Negro," attracting the likes of Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, and Claude McKay. Also highlighted are publications such as the National Urban League's Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, which not only supplied forums for these writers but also attempted to generate income for them and provide a sense of racial identity. Music, theater, and the visual arts are also covered. The book contains aspects of everyday culture, too, such as the role of churches, funeral processions, and rent parties. Numerous quotes from speeches, poems, articles, and other works are included. The volume is a visual feast, packed with contemporary photographs, reproductions, magazine covers, and posters, and enhanced by an interesting graphic design. Together, the words and images bring this extraordinary period to life. Pair it with James Haskins's The Harlem Renaissance (Millbrook, 1996), which remains the more in-depth textual overview.
Joanne K. Cecere, Monroe-Woodbury High School, Central Valley, NY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Gr. 7-12. "In the 1920s, Harlem was hot!" With a beautiful open design, this illustrated history combines the politics of the black metropolis in the roaring 1920s with long, detailed chapters on the "blazing creativity" of performers, writers, visual artists, and intellectuals. Many readers will dip into pages that interest them. Others will appreciate the big picture, including the facts about the great migration from the South, the continuing racism, the debate concerning how blacks should win equal rights, and the call to get beyond sentimentality and propaganda. "We know we are beautiful. And ugly, too," Langston Hughes wrote in his groundbreaking essay "The Weary Blues," which is printed here in full, along with many other great selections from literature and journalism. The spacious pages are wonderful for browsing, with colored screens and reproductions of beautiful portraits, paintings, and neighborhood photos, many of them full page. Occasionally the text is dull. The biographies of Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, for example, are little more than dutiful chronologies; far livelier are discussions of their works, which show how the writers changed the view of blacks--and changed America. The lengthy bibliography is excellent, but, unfortunately, there is no documentation of particular quotes. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"With a beautiful open design, this illustrated history combines the politics of the black metropolis in the roaring 1920s with....detailed chapters on the 'blazing creativity' of performers, writers, visual artists, and intellectuals....wonderful for browsing." (Booklist (starred review) )

"A visual feast....Together, the words and images bring this extraordinary period to life." (School Library Journal (starred review) )

"This energetic, elegantly designed volume documents the artistic, literary and musical surge of black culture in Harlem." (Publishers Weekly (starred review) )

Customer Reviews

Young adults (and even older ones!) will love this book
This book is a visual feast and a joy to browse; the graphic design captures the energy of the Harlem Renaissance. It's like a scrapbook jammed with "rent party" tickets, dinner programs, book covers, letters, playbills, song lyrics and more. There is something here to capture the interest of even reluctant readers.

But the text also shines. The story of how and why Harlem came to be is told clearly and without mincing words: we learn the glorious achievements in art, music, theater, literature and just plain survival, but we also learn of the racism haunting the era, and the infighting within the Black community itself. I think readers will appreciate this honest, realistic approach, which brings the era to life.

By the way, given the graphic beauty of this book, the price is a steal!

Hill's "Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance"(1900-1930's)
Laban Carrick Hill's "Harlem Stomp" is a fine historic text: with words, as well as, in pictures, photos and paintings .The text supports the idiom "believe half of what you see and even less of what you hear" as the text makes it clear that photographers like James VanDerZee(Pgs 124-126):"had his subjects look flawless even when in real life that was not the case"(e.g. :as Harlem struggled with purpose and poverty).

Geared for kids but still informative
This seems geared for the junior high school crowd, but there are still great pictures and it's pretty stuffed with information. Worthwhile buy.