HARLEM AT FOUR

An ode to two Harlems.

Datcher attempts to celebrate both the year his daughter Harlem turned 4 and “the magical fourth year of the 1900s,” when Philip A. Payton Jr. founded the Afro-American Realty Company—an act that would make housing more readily available to African Americans moving north during the Great Migration. In Part 1, a Black father narrates, offering a poetic tribute to his confident, creative daughter, Harlem. As the two stroll through the neighborhood she was named for, the narrator mentions historical events and works of art such as John Coltrane’s album A Love Supreme. Father and daughter never appear in Part 2 as readers learn more about Payton and the history of Harlem. While all readers, regardless of their knowledge of Harlem, will be able to enjoy Morrison’s lively, graffiti-inspired illustrations, the same cannot be said of Datcher’s text, which tries to cover too much ground and uses language and phrasing that most children won’t understand. A reference to how the “government / sought to cage Black Panther Afeni Shakur” doesn’t elaborate on who Shakur was and will leave young readers confused, as will the highly academic backmatter that expands on the topics mentioned in the text. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Despite vibrant visuals, this tale fails to capture the essence of either its child protagonist or its rich urban setting.