Author Jason Reynolds visits the Build Series to discuss his novel “Look Both Ways” at Build Studio on October 08, 2019 in New York City.
Credit: © Gary Gershoff, Getty Images

February is Black History Month, an annual observance of the achievements and culture of Black Americans. This month, Behind the Headlines will feature Black pioneers in a variety of areas. 

When you check out the new releases section of your library or bookstore, you are bound to see several colorful and eye-catching books by Jason Reynolds. Reynolds is an American author of novels and poetry for young adult and middle-grade readers. His works explore a variety of topics from a young person’s perspective. Such topics include the Black American experience, as well as such issues as gun and gang violence.

In 2020, the librarian of Congress appointed Reynolds National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. The position involves traveling and speaking to groups of children, parents, and teachers to promote the joy of reading. Although normally a two-year position, the term was extended to three years for Reynolds because the COVID-19 pandemic (worldwide epidemic) interrupted his speaking schedule.

Reynolds was born on Dec. 6, 1983, in Washington, D.C. He grew up in neighboring Oxon Hill, Maryland. Reynolds graduated from the University of Maryland in 2005 with a degree in English.

Reynolds became interested in poetry at a young age. An interest in rap music inspired him to explore literature. He advocates using rap and comic books as nontraditional ways to reach young readers. Reynolds’s first book, When I Was the Greatest, was published in 2014. It tells the story of three Black teenage boys growing up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, in New York City. Reynolds often chooses Black teenagers—particularly teenage boys—as his subjects. He portrays the uncertainty or fear many of the boys feel, to encourage young male readers to express their own emotions.

Reynolds is best known for such books as Miles Morales: Spider-Man and Long Way Down (both 2017) and the “Track” series, which began with Ghost (2016). His other books include The Boy in the Black Suit (2015); All American Boys (2015, with Brendan Kiely); As Brave as You (2016); Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks (2019); Stuntboy, in the Meantime (2021); and Ain’t Burned All the Bright (2022).

Reynolds also wrote Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You (2020). The book is an adaptation, for middle-grade and teen readers, of the award-winning book Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (2016), written by the historian and activist Ibram X. Kendi. The books show ways in which past ideas and practices have embedded assumptions about race into modern thinking, and how people can identify racist thinking in their own lives in order to change it.

Reynolds has won many awards for his works, including the 2015 Coretta Scott King John Steptoe New Talent Award for When I Was the Greatest. Pick up one of Reynold’s award-winning books today, you may not be able to put it down!

Isabel Allende, a Chilean author, became internationally famous for her novels set in modern Chile, for her historical fiction, and for her autobiographical writings.
© Tiziana Fabi, AFP/Getty Images

People in the United States observe National Hispanic Heritage Month each year from September 15 to October 15. During this period, many Latin American countries celebrate their independence. These countries include Cuba, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua.

Isabel Allende is one of the leading novelists and journalists in Chile. Her novels and short stories, which were first published in the 1980′s, have won her international fame and several literary awards.

Allende was a journalist and television reporter in Chile in the 1960′s before joining the staff of the women’s magazine Paula in 1967. In 1970, her cousin and godfather, Salvador Allende Gossens, a socialist politician, was democratically elected president of Chile. In September 1973, Salvador Allende was overthrown and died during a right-wing military coup led by army general Augusto Pinochet Ugarte. The Allende family fled Chile, and Isabel moved to Venezuela, where she worked as a journalist. In 1983, she moved to the United States, where she held various university teaching posts while still pursuing her literary career.

Allende’s first novel, The House of Spirits (1982), is a direct reflection of her experiences in Chile during the time of the Pinochet coup and her later separation from her family. The novel arose out of a letter she wrote during 1981 to her dying grandfather, who had stayed in Chile. The letter recounted all the memories she had that would keep the old man alive for her. The House of Spirits became a best seller, and Allende won great critical acclaim. Her work was compared with that of the eminent Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez.

Latin American writers have composed many classics of modern world literature. They include the novels One Hundred Years of Solitude by the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, The House of the Spirits by the Chilean writer Isabel Allende, and the short story collection Ficciones by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Translated by Gregory Rabassa. English translation © 1970 by Harper & Row. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins); The House of the Spirits (Penguin Random House); Ficciones (Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial)

Allende’s other works, also steeped in Chile’s turbulent history, include two more novels, Of Love and Shadows (1984) and Eva Luna (1989); and the short story collections Tales of Eva Luna (1990) and The Infinite Plan (1992). Daughter of Fortune (2000) is a historical romance about a Chilean-born woman searching for her lover in California during the 1849 gold rush. Portrait in Sepia (2001) is a family chronicle set in Chile and California from 1862 to 1910. It draws on characters from The House of Spirits and Daughter of Fortune.

Allende’s historical novel Zorro (2005) portrays a dashing hero in California during the early 1800′s. Another historical novel, Inés of My Soul (2006), is set during the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in South America during the 1530′s. Her novel Island Beneath the Sea (2010) portrays a revolt of enslaved people in Haiti. In the novel Maya’s Notebook (2013), a young woman flees to a remote island off the coast of Chile to escape from pursuing assassins and law enforcement agents. Ripper (2014) is a mystery novel that features a child detective. The Japanese Lover (2015) is a love story about a Polish-born woman and her one-time Japanese gardener over a period of 70 years of modern history. In the Midst of Winter (2017) deals with three troubled characters with roots in Latin America whose lives intermingle starting with their unexpected meeting in Brooklyn, New York, in the United States. Long Petal of the Sea (2020) tells a story about refugees who flee to Chile to escape the Spanish civil war during the 1930’s.

Allende wrote Paula (1995) in the form of a letter to her daughter, Paula, who was dying of an inherited blood disease. She also wrote a children’s story, La Gorda de Porcelana (The Porcelain Fat Lady) (1984). For young adults, she wrote the trilogy of novels City of the Beasts (2002), Kingdom of the Golden Dragon (2004), and Forest of the Pygmies (2005). In 1997, Allende completed Afrodita: cuentos, recetas y otros afrodisíacos (translated as Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses), a nonfiction collection of writing about the history of love potions, which also included recipes. Allende wrote a memoir called My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Trip Through Chile (2003), as well as the related memoir The Sum of Our Days (2008). She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the highest civilian honors in the United States, in 2014.

Isabel Allende was born on Aug. 2, 1942, in Lima, Peru, where her father was a diplomat. Following the divorce of her parents, her mother took her back to live in Chile, where she lived from the age of 3 until their exile to Venezuela in 1973.

James Baldwin
Credit: Allan Warren (licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will feature LGBTQ+ pioneers in a variety of areas.

The Black novelist, essayist, and playwright James Baldwin (1924-1987) has gained fame for his works about racial injustice and sexual identity. Baldwin was born in the United States, but he lived much of his life in France. Whether writing in the United States or abroad, he offered fiery protests against racial inequality.

Baldwin promoted civil rights and encouraged people to accept social differences in several powerful essay collections. These include Notes of a Native Son (1955), Nobody Knows My Name (1961), The Fire Next Time (1963), No Name in the Street (1972), and The Devil Finds Work (1976). These five collections and other nonfiction pieces were compiled in The Price of the Ticket (1985).

Baldwin also explored interracial conflict in his fiction and drama, including the novel Another Country (1962), the play Blues for Mister Charlie (1964), and the short-story collection Going to Meet the Man (1965). In his novel Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone (1968), Baldwin presented his most detailed portrayal of civil rights activities during the 1960′s.

James Arthur Baldwin was born on Aug. 2, 1924, in the Harlem district of New York City. He was a minister as a teenager, and many of his works use the rich language and tone of Biblical scripture, Black sermons, and gospel and blues music. His early writings explore the characters’ psychological struggles with their religious faith and relationships. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), and first play, The Amen Corner (1955), portray tensions within Black families and churches. Baldwin explored the subject of homosexuality in his second novel, Giovanni’s Room (1956), and in other works of fiction.

Baldwin’s other works include the novels If Beale Street Could Talk (1974) and Just Above My Head (1979). A motion picture adaptation of If Beale Street Could Talk was released in 2018. Baldwin also wrote poetry and nonfiction with other writers and civil rights activists. He wrote one children’s book, Little Man, Little Man, that portrays the world of a black child growing up in Harlem during the 1970′s. The book was originally published in 1976 and reissued in a new edition in 2018. His essays were gathered in Collected Essays (published by the Library of America in 1998) and The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings (2010). The Library of America also published two volumes of Baldwin’s fiction, Early Novels & Stories (1998) and Later Novels (2015). Baldwin died on Dec. 1, 1987.

American poet Allen Ginsberg.
Credit: Public Domain (Dutch National Archives)

April is National Poetry Month, an annual celebration of this unique form of literature. Each week, Behind the Headlines will feature the art of poetry or a famous poet.

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness….”

So begins the epic poem Howl by the American poet Allen Ginsberg. In the poem, Ginsberg rails at length against dehumanizing forces in modern society. He also laments their effect on the people in his life.

Howl, first read publicly in October 1955, shocked audiences with its graphic descriptions of violence, mental illness, sexuality, and drug abuse. The poem’s publisher, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, was even charged with obscenity. However, Howl came to be seen as a revolutionary work of great indignation and humanity, and Ginsberg has come to be honored among the greatest modern poets.

Ginsberg was born on June 3, 1926, in Newark, New Jersey. He became known as a leader of the beat literary movement of the 1950′s and also of the cultural and political protests of the 1960′s. Critics have praised him as a prophetic poet in the tradition of William Blake of England and Walt Whitman of the United States.

Ginsberg’s writing combines the spiritual and rhythmic qualities of certain Eastern and Western religious texts with the language, imagery, and subject matter of modern life. Many critics see him as representing a struggle for spiritual survival in a dehumanized, repressive society.

The death of Ginsberg’s mother in 1956 inspired his famous elegy “Kaddish” (1961). His other works include Reality Sandwiches (1963), The Fall of America: Poems of These States (1972), and Mind Breaths (1978). Ginsberg died on April 5, 1997. His Collected Poems 1947-1997 was published in 2006. Wait Till I’m Dead: Uncollected Poems was published in 2016.

Poet Laureate of the United States Joy Harjo
Credit: Shawn Miller, Library of Congress

April is National Poetry Month, an annual celebration of this unique form of literature. Each week, Behind the Headlines will feature the art of poetry or a famous poet.

National Poetry Month promotes the appreciation and awareness of poetry. So, too, does Joy Harjo, the poet laureate of the United States. The poet laureate is the official poet of a state or nation. Harjo is a writer, a musician, and a member of the Muskogee (also spelled Muscogee or Mvskoke) Creek Nation. In 2019, she became the first Native American chosen to be poet laureate of the United States.

Harjo was born Joy Foster in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on May 9, 1951. Her father was Muskogee Creek, and her mother was of Cherokee and European ancestry. At age 19, Joy became a member of the Muskogee Creek Nation and took the last name of her father’s mother—Harjo—a common last name among the Muskogee. Harjo earned a B.A. degree in creative writing from the University of New Mexico in 1976 and an M.F.A. degree from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1978. She has since taught at the Institute of American Indian Arts in New Mexico and at universities in several states.

In 1975, Harjo published her first collection of poems in a short book called The Last Song. Her first full-length volume of poetry was What Moon Drove Me to This? (1979). Her poetry became well known with such collections as She Had Some Horses (1983), In Mad Love and War (1990), and The Woman Who Fell from the Sky (1994). Her forceful, intimate style draws on both natural and spiritual influences. Her poems often incorporate elements of Native American mythology and imagery. Harjo’s later collections include A Map to the Next World (2000), How We Became Human (2002), Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (2015), and An American Sunrise (2019). She has won many awards for her work.

Harjo also wrote The Good Luck Cat (2000), a children’s picture book about a girl who worries about her lucky cat, who has used up eight of his nine lives. A poetic picture book for young adults called For a Girl Becoming (2009) celebrates the birth of a baby girl and the girl’s path to adulthood. Harjo’s memoir, Crazy Brave (2012), describes her own youth and her discovery of her creative voice.

Harjo has written screenplays for television and contributed, as a writer or narrator, to several documentaries on aspects of Native American culture. As an accomplished musician and saxophone player, she has released several recordings. She also is an activist for Native American and other causes.

American poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Credit: © Robert Altman, Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

April is National Poetry Month, an annual celebration of this unique form of literature. Each week, Behind the Headlines will feature the art of poetry or a famous poet.

San Francisco, California, is home to such famous landmarks as Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, and City Lights bookstore. In 1953, the independent bookstore was founded by the American poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021) and his friend Peter Martin. The store became a gathering place for the Beat movement and other avant-garde (experimental) writers and artists of the 1950’s. The Beats were writers who disapproved of commercialism and middle-class American values. Ferlinghetti was best known as a leader of the Beat movement.

Ferlinghetti wrote in colloquial (conversational) free verse. Free verse is a style of poetry that does not follow traditional rules of poetry composition. His poetry describes the need to release literature and life from conformity and timidity. The grotesque and a feeling of intense excitement are combined in his work, especially in his most famous poetry collection, A Coney Island of the Mind (1958). The collection is also a satiric criticism of American culture. Satire is the use of wit to attack human conduct or institutions.

Lawrence Monsanto Ferling was born on March 24, 1919, in Yonkers, New York. His father, an Italian immigrant, had shortened the family name, Ferlinghetti, after coming to the United States. As an adult, Lawrence learned about his father’s original name and eventually took it as his own. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1941 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II (1939-1945), he earned a master’s degree in literature from Columbia University in 1947 and a doctorate degree in literature from the Sorbonne in Paris, France, in 1950.

When he returned to the United States, Ferlinghetti settled in San Francisco, California. There, in 1953, he and Peter Martin established the City Lights bookstore. In 1955, Ferlinghetti started a publishing company, also called City Lights. He published his own first volume of poetry, Pictures of the Gone World (1955), as well as works by Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Kenneth Rexroth, and others.

Ferlinghetti’s other collections of poetry include Endless Life: Selected Poems (1981); These Are My Rivers: New and Selected Poems, 1955-1993 (1993); A Far Rockaway of the Heart (1997); and How to Paint Sunlight: Lyric Poems and Others, 1997-2000 and San Francisco Poems (both 2001). His novels include Her (1960) and Love in the Days of Rage (1988). Poetry as Insurgent Art (2007) contains his writings on the nature of poetry. Writing Across the Landscape (2015) is a collection of travel journal entries written from 1960 to 2010. In 2019, Ferlinghetti published Little Boy, an autobiographical prose poem. He also published plays and composed oral messages—poems to be spoken to jazz accompaniment. Ferlinghetti died on Feb. 22, 2021.

Statue of the haiku poet Basho in Iwate, Japan
© beibaoke, Shutterstock

April is National Poetry Month, an annual celebration of this unique form of literature. Each week, Behind the Headlines will feature the art of poetry or a famous poet.

Haiku (pronounced hy koo) is a popular form of Japanese poetry. In Japanese, a haiku consists of 17 syllables arranged in three unrhymed lines. The first and third lines have 5 syllables, and the second line has 7 syllables. A haiku typically tries to create an impression or mood. Haiku themes are generally simple and deal with everyday situations and sensations. However, the poet tends to hint at them rather than treat them in a plain, direct manner.

According to Japanese tradition, each haiku must contain a kigo—that is, a word that indicates the season in which the poem is set. Some kigo are obvious, such as snow to indicate winter. Others are less obvious. For example, the word balloon can indicate spring.

Haiku originated in the 1600’s as the first three lines, called hokku, that served as the opening stanza of a longer poem. From the late 1600’s to the early 1800’s, the Japanese poets Matsuo Basho, Yosa Buson, and Kobayashi Issa composed classic hokku. Basho composed the following lines during the late 1600’s:

Temple bells die out.

The fragrant blossoms remain.

A perfect evening!

In 1892, the poet and journalist Masaoka Shiki published rules that established haiku as an independent form of poetry rather than a part of a longer work of verse.

You can try writing your own haiku! In many parts of the world, spring has arrived. You could write a haiku about the blossoming flowers in a park or the chirping birds outside your window. When you’re done, read your poem to your musical bird friends!

American poet Amanda Gorman
Credit: © Kathy Hutchins, Shutterstock

April is National Poetry Month, an annual celebration of this unique form of literature. Each week, Behind the Headlines will feature the art of poetry or a famous poet. 

On January 20, Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. On the west front of the United States Capitol, musicians performed, religious leaders prayed, and a new president delivered an inaugural address. Among the many speakers was the American poet Amanda Gorman. A 22-year-old Black woman, Gorman became the youngest poet to read at a presidential inauguration.

The poem, titled “The Hill We Climb,” was written for the occasion and referenced the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, just two weeks before the inauguration. In the attack, rioters supporting outgoing President Donald Trump stormed the building in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election, which Biden won. Gorman’s poem read in part:

We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it,

Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.

And this effort very nearly succeeded.

But while democracy can be periodically delayed,

It can never be permanently defeated.

In this truth, in this faith, we trust.

For while we have our eyes on the future,

history has its eyes on us.

Many observers described Gorman’s performance as extremely moving, bringing the poem’s beautiful, powerful words to life. Her expressive voice guided listeners through the past, present, and future of the United States. The poem and her performance were met with much acclaim.

Gorman was born in 1998 in Los Angeles, California. She struggled with a speech impediment as a child. Gorman studied at Harvard University. She had her first published collection of poetry with The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough (2015). Her work includes themes of feminism and racial oppression. In 2017, she was named the first U.S. National Youth Poet Laureate by the youth writing program Urban Word NYC in cooperation with the Library of Congress.

Gorman became one of only a few poets to perform at a presidential inauguration, joining such legends as Maya Angelou and Robert Frost. In 1993, Angelou performed the poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton. Frost recited his poem “The Gift Outright” at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.

American children’s author Beverly Cleary
Credit: State Library Photograph Collection, Washington State Archives

April 2 is International Children’s Book Day, a celebration of the role that such books play in the lives of children and their development into adults. Some children’s books take readers to imaginary lands and on unusual adventures. Others may describe places and events that are familiar. Some children’s books address readers’ curiosity about life in other countries or in distant times. Biographies for children portray the lives and accomplishments of notable people. Some works, particularly those aimed at older children and adolescents, deal with the difficult situations often faced by individuals and society.

This International Children’s Book Day, World Book remembers the beloved American author Beverly Cleary, who died last week at the age of 104. Cleary wrote more than 40 children’s books. Her books are noted for their humor and for their realistic and natural dialogue. Cleary is best known for her series of books about the adventures of two youngsters named Henry Huggins and Ramona Quimby. The two characters and their friends live in a middle-class suburb of Portland, Oregon. In 1975, Cleary received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award (now called the Children’s Literature Legacy Award) for her lifelong contributions to children’s literature.

Cleary has been praised as one of the first American authors to include children of divorced or single-parent families in her books. She won the 1984 Newbery Medal for Dear Mr. Henshaw (1983), a novel about a sixth-grade boy named Leigh Botts. The boy’s parents are divorced and he is attending a new school—situations that confront many of Cleary’s readers. In a series of letters Leigh writes to Mr. Henshaw, his favorite author, the reader learns of Leigh’s loneliness. One year older and much happier, Leigh appears in Cleary’s sequel, Strider (1991).

Beverly Atlee Bunn was born on April 12, 1916, in McMinnville, Oregon. She married Clarence T. Cleary in 1940. She began her adult career as a librarian. Cleary’s books reflected her desire to write about the kinds of rascals she met during read-aloud sessions in her library. One of her major complaints growing up was that she could not find funny books that featured kids like her. To solve the problem, Cleary wrote her first children’s book, Henry Huggins (1950). Ramona first appeared as a major character in Beezus and Ramona (1955). Cleary’s fantasy series about Ralph Mouse was inspired by her son’s love of motorcycles. The series began with The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965).

Cleary wrote two autobiographies, A Girl from Yamhill (1988) and My Own Two Feet (1995), as well as the autobiographical children’s novel Emily’s Runaway Imagination (1961). She died on March 25, 2021.

Credit: © metamorworks, Shutterstock

April 1 marks the first day of National Poetry Month in the United States, a celebration of this unique form of literature. Each week, Behind the Headlines will feature the art of poetry or a famous poet.

Throughout history, poetry has been used for many purposes. People have used poetry in religious rituals, to praise and celebrate remarkable individuals, and to express intense emotions, from love to rage. Various social groups have also used poetry to record events and stories. Such poems include lessons that are important for the group to remember and pass down from generation to generation.

The basic feature of poetic language is rhythm. Rhythm is the repetition of sounds in a particular pattern. All human beings enjoy rhythm. Children may clap their hands or rock their bodies to match the rhythm of nursery rhymes, with the rhythm helping the words stick in their memory. Adults may detect more subtle patterns in poems and find that such patterns deepen their response to the meanings and emotions conveyed by the words.

Poetry began in prehistoric times, as an oral (spoken) tradition. After the development of writing, poetry gradually became an important written art. In all languages throughout history, human beings have created poems, remembered them, recited them, and found deep meaning in them. There are times in life when every human being wants to say exactly the right thing in exactly the right words. That is what poets try to do. For people who do not write poetry, it can be a moving discovery to find a poem that expresses feelings or experiences for which they cannot find the words.

Poetry has come to seem strange to many people. Yet, we still discover poetry in many places in our world. Popular songs feature such poetic innovations as regular meter and rhyme. Nursery rhymes and children’s verse remain popular. At important events in life—a wedding or a funeral, for example—people may recite poetry to express their feelings and to mark the significance of the event.

People still turn to poetry to express romantic feelings, whether reciting well-known poems or writing their own. Poems remain not only among the most enjoyable uses of language but the most precise and significant as well. In some cultures, poetry remains highly valued, and many people have memorized numbers of poems.

Not every poem is well-written or memorable. But among the countless poems that have been written throughout the ages, every individual will find at least some that strike a deep and resonant chord.