Poems describing a Sunday in the all-day-church black Baptist tradition, from a girl's point of view. Poems describe the ladies' hats, the ushers' white gloves, the walking-in music, singing in the Spirit, a baptism, the church supper, and a lady preacher in the afternoon.

For this child in the South, the whole week leads up to Sunday, with church and family time.

This "shouting" is the worship experience of getting caught up in the Spirit with music and dance. The art does a great job of capturing exuberant movement, and the text indicates how the spirit-filled dance is "echoing Africa, Africa, Africa."

Madelia is a preacher's daughter who would rather draw with her new art materials than go to church today, but has to go to church anyway. During her father's sermon she has visions of a tree of life and a chariot, and her father encourages her art.

A family reunion meal in a park--both text and art show affectionate humor towards the various relatives. A fun read for/to kids, who enjoy seeing who's going to turn up with what food on each page.

The main character here is a white girl, representing Polacco's own childhood memories of growing up in an integrated neighborhood where she was close friends with an African American family next door, two boys and their grandmother. The three children work to buy the gramma a new hat for Easter, which she wears in church near the end, singing with a voice "like slow thunder and sweet rain."