There Was a Party for Langston by Jason Reynolds, Jerome Pumphrey & Jarrett Pumphrey - ADVISABLE

There Was a Party for Langston by Jason Reynolds, illustrated by Jerome Pumphrey & Jarrett Pumphrey. PICTURE BOOK A Caitlyn Dlouhy Book Atheneum (Simon and Schuster), 2023. $19. 9781534439443 

BUYING ADVISORY: EL (K-3), EL - ADVISABLE 

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE 

In February 1991, there was a grand opening of the Langston Hughes Auditorium at the Schomburg Center. That's the party for Langston! Jason Reynolds pays tribute to Hughes words and how they inspired two other poets Maya Angelou and Amiri Baraka, who attended that party. 

The Pumphrey brothers' illustrations are fun. They incorporate words into their pictures allowing the readers to spend extra time on each page immersing themselves in the extra text. One illustration (recurring) I especially loved was other black poets leaning out of their books on the library shelves to watch the party. A great introduction or supplement for a class studying Hughes. The characters are African American.

Lisa Librarian