Merry Christmas, Baby: A Christmas and Kwanzaa Treasury - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060173955 ISBN 13: 9780060173951

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1996

Synopsis

Reflecting an African-American perspective on the feelings and experiences of Christmas, a collection of writings and recipes, highlighted by dramatic four-color artwork, includes works by Nikki Giovanni, W. E. B. Du Bois, and others, in a Christmas and Kwanzaa treasury. 30,000 first printing. $40,000 ad/promo. Tour.

About this title

From Booklist:

Gr. 7^-12. As much a bookstore gift item as a library resource, this anthology about African American feelings and experiences of Christmas and Kwanza includes poetry, recipes, memoirs, essays, fiction, and prayers. In addition, there are 35 handsome color illustrations and a cover painting by Horace Pippin. This work doesn't have the immediacy for young readers of Charlemae Rollins' anthology Christmas Gif' (1991); some of the memoirs are flat, and some are adult in focus. However, the best of them sing with warmth and love. Beginning with fugitive Harriet Jacobs' searing account of what slavery did to family, the book moves through history with memories of sorrow and of joyful festivity. Martin Luther King's sermon on peace is here; so is Langston Hughes' "Christmas Song." P. K. McCary's "The Word According to Matthew" makes the Christmas story funny and immediate, great for reading aloud ("Who are they to diss me this way?" Herod roared). In the contemporary pieces, several writers combine Christmas with the transforming traditions of Kwanza. Hazel Rochman

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0060173955
• ISBN 13: 9780060173951
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240
• Editor: Woods Paula L., Liddell Felix H.