Do you ever think you know a lot about a topic and then open a book to read something completely new? That's what happened when I read this offering from Carole Boston Weatherford and R. Gregory Christie. I thought I knew just about everything about slavery in the 1800s in our country, at least all that could be told to young children in the format of a picture book. I studied African American history in college and I live in the South, even teaching school on land that was once a plantation housing slaves. I've been to New Orleans. But I never knew about Congo Square or anything like a Congo Square. It is such a satisfying feeling to learn something new...and to have it presented in a way that makes it accessible to the very young students I teach.

When I was on the Caldecott committee, I would find books that I liked, but a few months later I could barely remember a thing about them. Not so with Freedom in Congo Square. The first time I saw this book was in December 2015, shortly before the 2016 publication date. I was haunted by Weatherford's couplets, which reminded me of nursery rhymes that followed the days of the week. Easy to read but full of emotion, her couplets move the reader from Monday to Sunday. ("Mondays, there were hogs to slop, mules to train, and logs to chop. Slavery was no ways fair. Six more days to Congo Square.") The story continues to move through the labors of the week until the delicious celebration on Sunday in Congo Square: "half day, half free in Congo Square."

The Caldecott committee will be rewarded when it looks at Christie's art through the criteria, for here is where the book, like the characters in Congo Square, really soars. The delineation of plot, theme, characters, setting, mood, or information is clearly evident in the pictures. At first, perhaps with tender memories of Sunday in their minds, the enslaved workers are shown, nearly blending in with the brown of the earth, with facial features nothing more than a suggestion. Even the pigs are shown in more detail. Could there be any clearer illustration of how a slave was seen by his master? The days move relentlessly on and still the slaves are shown in little detail, each the same as the one next to him or her. But a closer look brings a necessary chill: the "dreaded lash" and white slave hunters on horseback, a frightening tree takes over a few foregrounds, and one sleeping scene looks a lot like the images from slave ships. Only on Sundays do the enslaved people come into real focus, wearing their own colorful clothing, playing instruments, and, finally, dancing, almost like birds, on top of warm yellow backgrounds. The joy in these spreads is where the reader is left, not back in the fields or working in the house, but free. It's nothing less than exhilarating.

Every spread reflects Weatherford's text yet extends it in ways that only art can do, reaching the reader wherever he or she is. Young children could hear this story on a basic level, and older kids could dig into the historical foreword and author's note. The next time I am in New Orleans I will certainly take a trip to Congo Square. I hope I can feel the dancing spirits of all those who savored those few hours of freedom each Sunday there.

What else will the collective mind of the Caldecott committee find when they open the cover of this fine book? I cannot imagine this will not be discussed in January!

 

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