Book Review: Ain’t Burned All the Bright,* by poet Jason Reynolds with art by illustrator Jason Griffin*, published 01/11/’22, 195 pages (Kindle edition), recommended for grades 7-12 or ages 12+. Please note: this title is not yet in the Pageturner library and will require student requests for purchases to be made.
Described as a smash-up between poetry and art, this emotional work describes the year 2020 from the perspective of a Black family, beginning with the murder of George Floyd by police, and continuing through the emergence of the COVID-SARS pandemic. (1) Narrated in first person by a son, the book is divided into three sections called “Breaths” numbered one, two and three. George Floyd, of course, couldn’t breathe, and the dad in this story can’t breathe for the coughing fits inflicted by Covid-19. An inhalation is depicted as a facial profile breathing in the sweet scent of a delicate flower, “in through the nose”-- an exhalation is drawn as that same profile blowing out a single candle on a decorated cupcake, “out through the mouth.” The frustrations of systemic racism are brutally raw images full of destruction, drawn as though in an endless loop on TV--or bleak, blank pages of darkness without words. The boy’s father reaches desperately for his family in his isolation, calling out to them and then stopping in coughs that continue through pages.
“And I’m sitting here wondering why/ my mother won’t change the channel / [emphasis added, this phrase repeats throughout the book.]
And why the news won’t/change the story/ And why the story/won’t change into something new/ instead of the every-hour rerun/about how we won’t/change the world/or the way we treat the world/or the way we treat each other"
And why the news won’t/change the story/ And why the story/won’t change into something new/ instead of the every-hour rerun/about how we won’t/change the world/or the way we treat the world/or the way we treat each other"
“...And my other’s head rocks and swivels/east to west like the old fan/pushing thick heat around this house/and she wipes weary from her eyes/still glued to the no-good/glued to the high definition glare/of low-definition life/...and my sister talks to her home girl/ through the screen of her phone/like it’s the screen of the front door/and they talking about a protest/and how they heard this and that/this being people from everywhere/are taking to the streets/to call out/and cry out/for freedom to live/and freedom to laugh (2)/...and freedom to breathe...
“...and I take a break/ from them all/to check on my father/who’s been coughing up a song/I haven’t learned the words to yet/...and when he coughs again/my mother says not to go in there/so I keep peeking/through a crack in the door/and when he sees me he smiles/because the fever/ain’t burned/all his bright up yet...” And here we get the title of the book, ferreted out and rescued by one of its Simon and Schuster publishers, Caitlyn Dlouhy.
“And it feels like/I’m the only person/who can tell/we’re all suffocating...”
The dad recovers with hugs for all, giving his kids new nicknames. His brother finally tussles with him again, and his sister’s voice is resurgent. Finally:
"I still can't help/ but ask/ if anyone's seen the remote."
With this, we are given the grace to relax into a little chuckle. Hope springs. Life is resilient. Let's hope it lasts into 2025 and beyond.
In the afterword, comically titled "is anyone still here?'" the two Jasons, erstwhile college roommates some two decades ago, and also collaborators since 2009, discuss how the year affected them; together they reminisce about their process in creating this book:
Griffin had remarked that he'd been drawing a lot in moleskin journals, transforming by his artwork the history as it was happening into a kind of personal oxygen mask; this immediately gave Reynolds his inspiration for the book, which he refused to discuss until the next day for fear it might "be trash." Griffin writes that he's still sorting "the malleable nature of language...it's not much different from painting or jazz, or even friendship." Reynolds gave him carte blanche to rearrange his words however he needed to fit the art, which I found to be an immense gift of trust. How many of us have friends to whom we would give such trust, or they to us? Reynolds mentions that the book was really for them, a breath for the past, one for the present, and one for the future. When Griffin asks Reynolds what advice he might have for the reader, Reynolds writes, "just live with it. give yourself over to it. like we did. that's all." That turned out to be excellent advice. The first two times I read this work, I had to put it down and back off awhile, because the art and poetry together were a gut punch in memory and, for me, too, rage: about how we refuse to change the world, or how we treat the world, and especially, how we treat each other--stuck as we are in an endless plantation mode loop. It's a fascinating look back at how the year burned through us all, especially about the process of growth in lifetime friendship (and why we should develop and treasure them)--and also how friendship helped to create a brilliant work of art.
"I still can't help/ but ask/ if anyone's seen the remote."
With this, we are given the grace to relax into a little chuckle. Hope springs. Life is resilient. Let's hope it lasts into 2025 and beyond.
In the afterword, comically titled "is anyone still here?'" the two Jasons, erstwhile college roommates some two decades ago, and also collaborators since 2009, discuss how the year affected them; together they reminisce about their process in creating this book:
Griffin had remarked that he'd been drawing a lot in moleskin journals, transforming by his artwork the history as it was happening into a kind of personal oxygen mask; this immediately gave Reynolds his inspiration for the book, which he refused to discuss until the next day for fear it might "be trash." Griffin writes that he's still sorting "the malleable nature of language...it's not much different from painting or jazz, or even friendship." Reynolds gave him carte blanche to rearrange his words however he needed to fit the art, which I found to be an immense gift of trust. How many of us have friends to whom we would give such trust, or they to us? Reynolds mentions that the book was really for them, a breath for the past, one for the present, and one for the future. When Griffin asks Reynolds what advice he might have for the reader, Reynolds writes, "just live with it. give yourself over to it. like we did. that's all." That turned out to be excellent advice. The first two times I read this work, I had to put it down and back off awhile, because the art and poetry together were a gut punch in memory and, for me, too, rage: about how we refuse to change the world, or how we treat the world, and especially, how we treat each other--stuck as we are in an endless plantation mode loop. It's a fascinating look back at how the year burned through us all, especially about the process of growth in lifetime friendship (and why we should develop and treasure them)--and also how friendship helped to create a brilliant work of art.
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* 2022 Boston Globe–Horn Book Picture Book Award winner
Caldecott Honoree in 2023, especially for illustrator Jason Griffin
Prior to publication, Ain't Burned received starred reviews from Booklist,[7] Kirkus Reviews,[8] and Publishers Weekly. Between November 2022 and early 2023, it appeared on various best-of-2022 lists in The Washington Post,[13] SLJ,[14] and The Horn Book,[15] while the Bulletin awarded it a 2022 Blue Ribbon in the Fiction category.
(1) "What you need to know
(1) "What you need to know
"SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can damage the lungs, heart, brain, kidneys, and blood vessels. Inflammation was first thought to be the main source of this damage. As it became clear that parts of the virus bind to proteins in the mitochondria — the parts of the cell that produce most cellular energy — researchers realized that compromised mitochondria may also play a role in organ damage from SARS-CoV-2 infection. In a study supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), researchers found that SARS-CoV-2 can cause lasting damage to the energy production of mitochondria in many organs of the body.
"Where can I go to learn more?
"Where can I go to learn more?
- Chronic viral infections may influence the likelihood of developing Long COVID, and different chronic infections were associated with different Long COVID symptoms.
- Autopsies of patients with COVID-19 showed evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection throughout the entire body, even among those who had mild or asymptomatic cases.
- In a study supported by the Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Initiative, researchers found that people from certain racial and ethnic groups are more likely than people from other groups to experience certain symptoms linked to Long COVID." See: https://covid19.nih.gov/news-and-stories/long-term-effects-sars-cov-2-organs-and-energy
(2) My husband grew up Black in Mobile, AL before the Civil Rights Act of 1965. He often told me about growing up without ever having an indoor toilet, and how Mobile had two public libraries, and the one for Black folk only went to 6th grade reading level. That the city pool was for Whites only, so he'd never learned how to swim. He also told me about a Mobile city ordinance that forbade Black men and boys from laughing in public. I think he told it as an allegory, like the Br'er Rabbit tales, but I didn't quite grok that, then; its impact, however, was powerful. He told me it was only legal to laugh into “laughing barrels,” and I imagined them conveniently provided on almost every city block. I have tried unsuccessfully to find any reference to such an ordinance in history , but there is a well-known story that slaves used to laugh behind their owners’ backs by resorting to laughing in barrels—this is where the phrase “barrel of laughs” come from. Whether laughing barrels are myth or historical fact, Black laughter has always been a threat to White supremacy, as Reynolds shows in this part of his poem. For “Laughing barrels” and the defiant spirit of Black laughter” See: http://blackyouthproject.com/laughing-barrels-and-the-defiant-spirit-of-black-laughter/
As recently as 2015, Black women in a book club on a Napa wine tour were forced out for “laughing raucously."
"Women kicked off Napa Valley Wine Train file $11m racial discrimination suit
Two book club members have lost their jobs in midst of media furor resulting from incident in which they allege train kicked them off for ‘laughing while black’
"Women kicked off Napa Valley Wine Train file $11m racial discrimination suit
Two book club members have lost their jobs in midst of media furor resulting from incident in which they allege train kicked them off for ‘laughing while black’
“The Sistahs on the Reading Edge book club members, who are mostly black, said they had decided to sue not for the money but to raise awareness that racism is still rife across American society... The 11 women – 10 black and one white, ranging in age from their 50s to 85 – said that on 22 August they felt severely humiliated when they were marched off the train “as if we were criminals” and handed over to four waiting armed police officers.”
Read more at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/01/napa-valley-wine-train-racial-discrimination-lawsuit-laughing-while-black
Read more at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/01/napa-valley-wine-train-racial-discrimination-lawsuit-laughing-while-black
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