AN EARTH SONG

A “petite poem” by Hughes gets its first picture-book treatment.

Perhaps taking inspiration from the word song in Hughes’ poem, Andrews casts a red-winged blackbird as a harbinger of spring. She makes the narrator a young Black child who delights at seeing the bird through an apartment window, snow still visible on the sill. When the child ventures outside with a Black adult (likely their parent), they see several other signs of spring, some of which are directly named in Hughes’ poem, while Andrews adds others to deftly expand upon the text. For example, in a spread reading “Strong as the shoots of a new plant / Strong as the bursting of new buds,” the child is near a flowerbed, with unmentioned honeybees near the blooms. The red-winged blackbird appears again in a scene set in Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park that includes a depiction of sculptor Thomas J. Price’s 9-foot-tall bronze figure The Distance Within. The bird flies over an open, grassy space where diverse children run and play in an idyllic scene embodying the interpretation of the poem offered in backmatter: “In the poem, Langston writes about how long he has waited and hoped for change—a sunny spring day, and perhaps a time when everyone has equal opportunity to experience freedom, joy, and peace.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Like springtime, worth the wait.