{"id":4997,"date":"2019-11-24T00:01:19","date_gmt":"2019-11-24T06:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=4997"},"modified":"2019-11-22T11:39:44","modified_gmt":"2019-11-22T17:39:44","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-665-featuring-ashley-bryan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=4997","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks #665: Featuring Ashley Bryan"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nToday I’ve got some spreads from one of my very favorite 2019 books \u2014 Ashley Bryan’s<\/a><\/strong> Infinite Hope: A Black Artist’s Journey from World War II to Peace<\/a><\/strong><\/em> (Atheneum\/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, October 2019). This is a 112-page picture book memoir that chronicles the award-winning author-illustrator’s (often harrowing) experiences in the segregated army of World War II (he was drafted in 1943 while an art student at Cooper Union) and, essentially, how his love of art got him through. This is the first time Bryan writes publicly of his war experiences and shares them with the wider world. <\/p>\n

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The book includes hand-written letters and postcards, old photographs and documents, diary entries, art that has not been previously published, sketches, and more. Fortunately, I have some spreads here today to show you how the book is laid out; as the Kirkus<\/em> review<\/a><\/strong> notes, it’s very scrapbook-esque.
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(Click to enlarge cover)<\/em><\/center>
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\nThere are some deeply moving moments here in this merging of story and art. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Also, over at the Horn Book’s<\/em> Calling Caldecott this past week, guest posters Elisa Gall and Jonathan Hunt discussed this book (in a post about two books from 2019 that they feel could be awarded both the Caldecott and<\/em> Newbery Awards). If you want to read more about Ashley’s book, I’m sending you in that direction, because I appreciate what the two of them have to say about how this book is constructed and designed. As Elisa writes:<\/p>\n

What particularly stands out to me is the tension (in both text and visuals) between the horrors Bryan experienced and the healing, inspiring qualities of an artistic life, such as the one that helped him to survive.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So true. <\/p>\n

Their post is here<\/a><\/strong>. Below are some spreads. Also, if you’re interested in hearing even more about the book, don’t miss Nick Patton’s conversation with Ashley here<\/a><\/strong> at The Picturebooking Podcast<\/em>.
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“It was early spring, 1943, and I had had a sense that my notice would be coming soon; many friends at Cooper Union had already been drafted, as had a number of fellows in my Bronx neighborhood. When I went home and told my mother, she had an unexpected reaction. She said, ‘Son, what will you do when there’s no icebox door
for you to pull open every five minutes?'”<\/em>
(Click to enlarge spread)<\/center>
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“As an adult I found out that when I was a young child, I was the first Black
to be registered at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Bronx.”<\/em>
(Click either image to enlarge and see spread in its entirety)<\/center>
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“I drew those barrage balloons again and again, but only recently discovered that
it had been a Black company that had set them up.”<\/em>
(Click to enlarge spread)<\/center>
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“Segregation came into play once more. Ships departing for the United States
took the white companies home first.”<\/em>
(Click to enlarge spread)<\/center>
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“What I painted most steadily for the next several decades were the flowers
that brightened the gardens on Little Cranberry Island, my home.
There was beauty to be joyfully captured. Beauty to sustain me.”<\/em>
(Click either image to enlarge and see spread in its entirety)<\/em><\/center>
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\nINFINITE HOPE: A BLACK ARTIST’S JOURNEY FROM WORLD WAR II TO PEACE. Text copyright \u00a9 2019 by The Ashley Bryan Center, a Maine Corporation. Images here today reproduced by permission of the publisher, Atheneum\/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, New York.<\/em><\/p>\n

Note for any new readers: 7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks is a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. New kickers are always welcome.<\/p>\n

* * * Jules’ Kicks * * *<\/strong><\/font>
<\/center><\/p>\n

I’m keeping things on the short side today, because I am away! We Danielsons are spending the weekend with good friends and have been invited to their early Thanksgiving meal. I love these friends like family, so I’m looking forward to it (as I type this mid-week). <\/p>\n

I guess now is the time to wish you kickers a good holiday (this coming week), however it is that you spend it! I’m perma-grateful that you share a tiny part of your Sundays with me. <\/p>\n

What are YOUR<\/font><\/strong> kicks this week? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I’ve got some spreads from one of my very favorite 2019 books \u2014 Ashley Bryan’s Infinite Hope: A Black Artist’s Journey from World War II to Peace (Atheneum\/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, October 2019). This is a 112-page picture book memoir that chronicles the award-winning author-illustrator’s (often harrowing) experiences in the segregated army of World War […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,3,26,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seven-good-things-before-monday","category-intermediate","category-nonfiction","category-picture-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4997\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}