Review by Booklist Review
Hughes' classic lullaby gets a loving lift with Quall's graceful artwork in this picture book that shows a beautiful baby in its loving mother's embrace, dancing in the night sky among the stars, floating on a chair in the clouds over the Harlem city lights, and celebrating the dark. At the heart of the words and pictures is the parent-baby bond, but, asthe moving afterword points out, there are longing and loneliness, too, echoed in the silhouetted profiles of mother and child kissing the night from opposite ends of the double-page spread. One particularly stirring spread shows a close-up of the mother bouncing her baby above the crib with the world outside the window ( A necklace of stars / winding the night ). The full poem is printed at the back, along with a 1902 photo of an infant Hughes in his mother's arms and a biographical note about the poet. The physical intimacy of mother and child cuddleclose is timeless.--Rochman, Hazel Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
"My little dark baby,/ My little earth-thing,/ My little love-one,/ What shall I sing/ For your lullaby?" Hughes wrote this poem more than 80 years ago, but its playful language and informal lines sound startlingly fresh and modern. The poem's images of night and innocence are well suited for a picture book, too. Qualls (Freedom Song) keeps his artwork simple, painting a series of spreads that hew closely to the words. He renders "A necklace of stars" with a bird flying around mother and child, leaving a trail of stars around the woman's neck. "Moon,/ Moon,/ Great diamond moon" shows the white-gowned, long-haired mother floating among the clouds, holding her son up so he can see the shining disk in a dark, gray-blue sky. Swirls of grass and celestial orbs embellish daytime scenes, while the lights of tall buildings join with the stars above to form a backdrop for several nocturnal spreads. An afterword describes Hughes's career. A quiet but welcome introduction to the writer's work for the very young. Ages 3-8. Illustrator's agent: Rebecca Sherman, Writers. House. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Baby-Toddler--Crafted from Hughes's lilting words, this sturdy version of a previously published book sings of a Black mother's love through her "sleep-song lullaby." Night stars, diamond moon, and mother and child are rendered ever so tenderly in paint and collage. VERDICT A lovely send-off to the land of dreams.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
"My little dark baby, / My little earth-thing, / My little love-one, / What shall I sing / For your lullaby?" So begins the poem first published by Langston Hughes in 1932 in The Dream Keeper and Other Poems. Not all poems make for great picture book texts, but this one has just the right cadence and all the right line breaks for smooth page turns, especially when accompanied by Qualls's superb art showing the deep bond between a mother and her baby at bedtime. His blue-hued pencil, acrylic, and cut-paper collages have a dreamlike quality that suggests the transition from wakefulness to sleep, surrounded by a lullaby of swirling musical notes, set against a big-city backdrop. An author's note about the poet observes that Langston Hughes never had any children of his own and poses the question: "For whom is he writing this lullaby?" It goes on to describe his lonely childhood and concludes that he may have written it to comfort the child he was. Compare the accompanying photograph of Hughes as a baby with his mother to Qualls's illustrations of mother and child, and you may find an intentional likeness. kathleen t. horning (c) Copyright 2013. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An urban setting with a calming palette complements the soothing, loving tone of Hughes' poem celebrating an African-American mother and her baby. The rhythmic language slowly unfolds with only a line or two per spread. Qualls' illustrations in acrylic, pencil and collage extend the rich imagery of the text with fantastical qualities that young ones can appreciate. "A necklace of stars" shows mother swinging her baby through a sparkling, celestial, deep purple sky softened with rounded clouds in blues, pinks and grays. The white "[g]reat diamond moon" leads to the next spread, in which mama and child, in a close-up silhouette, "[kiss] the night" amid a burst of stars and with a wavy line of musical notes. This "sleep-song lullaby" is ephemeral, as any sweet song is, but the just-the-right-length note at the end satisfyingly delivers biographical information about the famous poet, while a photo of Hughes as a baby with his mother and the poem's full text provide further context. This appealing, quiet offering would serve as an appropriate introduction to poetry for new readers since the font is big and much of the vocabulary repeats. Share with little ones needing a gentle lullaby. (note, further reading) (Picture book/poetry. 2-6)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
