Happy 90th, Ashley Bryan! (Coretta Scott King Medalist - twice - & HCA nominee)

[leno...@yahoo.com]

He was nominated for the 2006 Hans Christian Andersen Medal for Illustration.

1981, Coretta Scott King Award, illustrator, Beat the Story Drum, Pum-Pum
2008, Coretta Scott King Award, illustrator, Let it Shine: Three Favorite Spirituals

“Ashley Bryan was born in New York City and now lives on a small island (Islesford, Little Cranberry Isle, population 100) off the coast of Maine, where he writes and illustrates books most of the year. A former (art) teacher at Dartmouth College, he has compiled, written and illustrated numerous books, many of them African folktales, such as Ashley Bryan's African Tales, Uh Huh and The Story of Lightning and Thunder, and collections of spirituals such as All Night, All Day: A Child's First Book of African American Spirituals. Beat the Story-Drum, Pum-Pum, won the 1980 Coretta Scott King Award for llustration, and Lion and the Ostrich Chicks was a Coretta Scott King Honor Book.”

I first encountered him through the 1986 book “Lion and the Ostrich Chicks.” In the story “The Foolish Boy” (as someone else described it) one of the first foolish things he does is, when the parents were planting bean seeds, he was walking behind them, picking them back up and putting them in his calabash. A neighbor saw him and laughed and only then did the parents notice.

“But they didn't get excited.
They didn't get upset.
They didn't howl or holler
And they didn't throw a fit.”

Instead, they taught him how to plant the seeds, laughing, “Don’t all children say and do foolish things?”

And, like any child, he keeps making foolish mistakes, which is how the neighbors come to label him “Foolish Boy,” but the refrain is the same every time, as is the parental patience and guidance, so he never repeats a mistake. And then…he encounters Anansi!

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=ashley%20bryan&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
(photos, covers)

http://www.ashwoodwaldorf.org/news/an-encounter-with-maine-artist-ashley-bryan/
(article: "An Encounter with Maine Artist Ashley Bryan," from March)

Here's what Bryan wanted for his birthday - you may be surprised!

http://islesford.com/node/19
(Search on Ashley.)

http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Bryan__Ashley.html
Article: “Discovering Ethnicity through Children's Books” by Bryan
Excerpt:
"I ask the children at my school programs, 'How many of you use the Public Library?' All hands go up. I ask, 'How many of you use the School Library?' All hands go up. I then ask, 'How many of you are building your own home library?' Fewer hands go up.

"I then ask that they promise to keep a jar on hand into which goes the extra coins—for books. When enough coins are saved a book is added to their own home library. I suggest that sometimes they remember to choose a book about their people."

(end)

He’s illustrated books by Langston Hughes, John Langstaff, Walter Dean Myers, and Nikki Giovanni.

http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/shelftalker/?p=71
(“Visiting Ashley Bryan” – this includes BEAUTIFUL pictures from inside his house!)

http://www.answers.com/topic/ashley-f-bryan
(long biography & bibliography - maybe not complete)

http://www.rif.org/readingplanet/bookzone/content/bryan.mspx
(interview, with photo & book covers)

https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&tab=ww#hl=en&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=%22Ashley+Bryan%E2%80%9D+interview&oq=%22Ashley+Bryan%E2%80%9D+interview&gs_l=hp.3..0i22i30.1015.1015.0.1478.1.1.0.0.0.0.284.284.2-1.1.0....0...1c.1.19.psy-ab.3hltJgksqrQ&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.48705608,d.bmk&fp=51ba9b23a9182d26&biw=1440&bih=753
(multiple interviews)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/features/bryan.htm
(long 1998 article, “Wagging the Tale Right Off the Page”)
"Does anybody know any Negro spirituals?" he asks the audience at a storytelling Friday, and no one raises a hand. "Negro, black, African American, slavery," he persists, and still no hands. "Now," he says, "how many of you know 'When the Saints Go Marching In' or 'He's Got the Whole World in His Hands'? he asks in song, and hands spring up. Then taking out a flutelike recorder, he plays the lullaby "All Night, All Day," from his illustrated book "All Night, All Day: A Child's First Book of African American Spirituals."

http://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/bryan
(videos - most are under 3 minutes.)

http://video.mpbn.net/video/1372108711/
(video interview – over 26 minutes)


Lenona.