Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America

Weatherford's (Leontyne Price: Voice of a Century) spare, lyrically formatted prose combines with Christoph's (the Origami Science Adventures series) stylized illustrations to tell the story of 20th-century African-American Renaissance man Gordon Parks. The present-tense narrative takes readers from the birth Parks barely survived through the odd jobs of his early years to his adulthood as a self-taught photographer and later novelist, musician, photojournalist, and director. Troubled by what he sees in the nation's capital, "Park vows to lay bare racism/ with his lens." His iconic 1942 photograph, "American Gothic," depicts African-American cleaning woman Ella Watson, broom in one hand and mop in another, the U.S. flag as her backdrop. "She knows all too well/ that the opportunities/ the flag symbolizes are denied her/ because of skin color." Christoph's spreads echo the pared narrative with a muted palette and modest styling, but their impact is powerful. One shows Parks observing black families who live in rundown alley dwellings as the shiny, white U.S. Capitol building looms in the distance. An afterword fleshes out Parks's story and includes a few b&w photos he took, including "American Gothic." Ages 5-8. (Feb.)

Gr 1-3--This picture book biography of Gordon Parks highlights the growth of his career as a photographer. Despite receiving little encouragement at school, Parks not only excelled at photography but also wrote novels, penned poetry, and composed music. The rich, varied text ("Boiling mad, Parks vows to lay bare racism with his lens.") is complemented by the illustrations, which sharply contrast Parks's life--mostly shown in full color--with sketches of his photographs--in black-and-white or sepia tones. Parks's career, which began with fashion shots and portraits, took off when he landed a job working for the Farm Security Administration in Washington, DC. There, he became keenly aware of the inequalities between blacks and whites and began to document these differences. When his boss directed him to talk to Ella Watson, a cleaning lady in the building, he photographed her at home with her family and produced his most famous photograph: American Gothic. An author's note provides additional information and includes reproductions of four of Parks's photographs. While the book gets off to a choppy start, moving very rapidly over the photographer's early life, it provides a much-needed portrait of a talented individual and views of his work. VERDICT This effective overview is a solid addition for those looking to beef up their biography collections. Fans of Weatherford's Leontyne Price: Voice of a Century (Knopf, 2014), Becoming Billie Holiday (Wordsong, 2009), and I, Matthew Henson: Polar Explorer (Walker, 2007) will appreciate this attractive offering.--Myra Zarnowski, City University of New York