Daddy Calls Me Man

by Angela Johnson, Rhonda Mitchell (Illustrator)

Overview

"This story...consists of four short verses about the happy home life of a young African-American boy. Family love and the shared stories and symbols that connect the generations are pervasive themes." - Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780531071755
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	09/01/2000
Series:	Richard Jackson Bks.
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	442,890
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.20(d)
Age Range:	3 - 5 Years

About the Author

Angela Johnson was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, but raised in Windham, Ohio; the only girl in a family of five. She now lives in Northeastern Ohio in a 100-year-old house full of plants. When not writing, she travels. On one of her trips to the California desert, the inspiration for her first novel, Toning the Sweep, came about.

Editorial Reviews

K-Gr 3Joyously written and illustrated, these four poems reflect the concerns of children. In "Big Shoes," the young narrator proclaims: "All I want is big shoes/Tie shoes/Fast shoes/Red and black jump high shoes./Line them up by Daddy's/and call them all our shoes." "Spin," "Noah's Moon," and "Baby Sister" round out the set. Each poem is accompanied by realistic oil paintings reproduced in luminous full color. Together they capture the spirit of African-American Noah, whose poems these are, amid his loving parents and two sisters. The artwork catches touching moments of affection and play among the family members; it enhances the text's energy by using changing perspectives and motion. Varied page design adds interest. This title will be a treat to read aloud, and newly independent readers will take to it as well.Carolyn Noah, Central Mass. Regional Library System, Worcester, MA

School Library Journal

This story from Johnson (The Rolling Store, p. 300, etc.) consists of four short verses ("Big Shoes," "Spin," "Noah's Moon," and "Baby Sister") about the happy home life of a young African-American boy. Family love and the shared stories and symbols that connect the generations are pervasive themes (as they are in all of Johnson's works); Mitchell embodies these themes in vivid oil illustrations by showing the boy narrator as the child of artists and introducing each of his poems with one of the parents' paintings. In the last spread, readers see the paintings hanging on the wall of the family's home studio. This may be a book to pair with Peter Catalanotto's The Painter (1995), for two glimpses of the lives of artists.

Kirkus Reviews