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At last I have gotten my hands on the 1941 Caldecott Medal winner, Robert Lawson's They Were Strong and Good! Which does indeed have gorgeous black and white woodcut style illustrations, very striking and lovingly detailed.
The book is basically an illustrated version of Lawson's family tree, which is, as Lawson says, "the story of the parents and grandparents of most of us who call ourselves Americans" - or at least of white Americans. I imagine that someone writing about the history of American identity could have a field day with this book and the European melting pot vision it offers, although it might be shooting fish in a barrel.
Lawson's mother's father was a Scottish sea captain, his mother's mother was a Dutch farm girl, his father's parents were both fire and brimstone Baptists from Alabama who bought their son his own slave when he was a boy, and he and the slave went hunting together with a couple of dogs...
I think most publishers these days would shy away from airily throwing a slave into a picture book without so much as a pause to discuss the ills of slavery. Even when Lawson's father goes off to fight in the Civil War, the book still doesn't discuss it at all. Slavery was here, slavery ended, when Lawson's father returned from the war he discovered that both his slave and his dogs had disappeared, so he up and went north to New York where he met Lawson's mama.
The illustrations really are lovely, though. So I can see why it won the medal, even though its vision of national identity feels awkwardly outdated today.
The book is basically an illustrated version of Lawson's family tree, which is, as Lawson says, "the story of the parents and grandparents of most of us who call ourselves Americans" - or at least of white Americans. I imagine that someone writing about the history of American identity could have a field day with this book and the European melting pot vision it offers, although it might be shooting fish in a barrel.
Lawson's mother's father was a Scottish sea captain, his mother's mother was a Dutch farm girl, his father's parents were both fire and brimstone Baptists from Alabama who bought their son his own slave when he was a boy, and he and the slave went hunting together with a couple of dogs...
I think most publishers these days would shy away from airily throwing a slave into a picture book without so much as a pause to discuss the ills of slavery. Even when Lawson's father goes off to fight in the Civil War, the book still doesn't discuss it at all. Slavery was here, slavery ended, when Lawson's father returned from the war he discovered that both his slave and his dogs had disappeared, so he up and went north to New York where he met Lawson's mama.
The illustrations really are lovely, though. So I can see why it won the medal, even though its vision of national identity feels awkwardly outdated today.
