A Song for August: The Inspiring Life of Playwright August Wilson
by Sally Denmead; illus. by Alleanna Harris
Primary, Intermediate    Levine/Levine Querido    40 pp.
6/24    9781646144396    $18.99

August Wilson (1945–2005), the renowned African American playwright, was born with “a song inside him.” He liked words and the way they had their own kind of music. Although learning was easy, attending school, where “nobody looked like him,” was difficult. He was targeted by bullies, and when a teacher questioned whether an assigned paper was really his own work (because it was “so good”), he walked out, never to return. At the public library, he voraciously read history, science, poetry, novels, and Greek philosophy. “And he found shelves of books written by Black authors. He read them all.” At the same time, he was learning from music and became captivated by blues singer Bessie Smith. “August had never heard the blues before, but it sounded like…well, it sounded like food he didn’t know he was hungry for.” When he began writing, he collected stories from enslavement and everyday situations in the lives of Black people and shaped them into plays. He “wrote those people alive,” affirming the theme that “everybody carries a song inside them.” Harris’s emotionally resonant illustrations (sketches composed with digital ink pens and finished using digital gouache brushes) support Denmead’s lyrical narrative and inspirational tone. An annotated bibliography of Wilson’s Century Cycle of plays and an extensive author’s note are appended.

From the July/August 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.