Nikki Giovanni is a Grammy-nominated poet, professor, activist, and author, named by Oprah Winfrey as one of her 25 living legends. She was the first recipient of the Rosa L. Parks Woman of Courage Award and has received the Langston Hughes Medal for poetry.
The latest of Giovanni's many illustrated children's books, A Library, recounts her weekly visits as a child to the segregated Carnegie Library near her home. It celebrates a library's power to open the imagination, develop the intellect, strengthen the heart, and expand children's worldview. A library isn't merely a place to return books, it is a place (to name a few) "to be free ... to be quick and smart ... to surf the rainbow ... to be jazz."
Half of this book's beauty comes from Erin K. Robinson's bold, vibrant illustrations. Even on the page about being "contained and cautious" in the library, she shows the young library patron herself shushing us with a finger to her lips, her eyes wide with alert attention, a full eight books stacked beneath the one she's reading.
In a closing note, Giovanni pays homage to her first librarian, Mrs. Long, who not only always encouraged her reading but also went to great lengths to get her the books she wanted. Elementary-school readers are sure to be inspired by this ode to books' ability to help us discover new sides of ourselves and our surroundings.
