The Book:
Author/Illustrator: Deborah Hopkinson, illustrations by Don Tate
Publication Info.: Peachtree, 2019
Categories: Biography, narrative nonfiction
Overview (from the publisher): “Carter G. Woodson didn’t just read history. He changed it.” As the father of Black History Month, he spent his life introducing others to the history of his people.
Carter G. Woodson was born to two formerly enslaved people ten years after the end of the Civil War. Though his father could not read, he believed in being an informed citizen. So Carter read the newspaper to him every day. When he was still a teenager, Carter went to work in the coal mines. There he met a man named Oliver Jones, and Oliver did something important: he asked Carter not only to read to him and the other miners, but also research and find more information on the subjects that interested them. “My interest in penetrating the past of my people was deepened,” Carter wrote. His journey would take him many more years, traveling around the world and transforming the way people thought about history.
What’s noteworthy for authors and educators:
Prologues in picture books? Sometimes a book needs a spread in the beginning to tell readers why they should pay attention and care about the subject. Here readers learn that Carter Woodson started Black History Month BEFORE they start reading about his life.
Also, just how do we deal with unsubstantiated facts in picture books. We often leave this to the author’s note. But in CARTER READS A NEWSPAPER, Deborah Hopkinson lets us know in the main text using “as the story goes.” Hopkinson writes, “At Harvard, as the story goes, one of Carter’s professors said Black people have no history.” This is supposedly the pivotal moment that inspired Woodson to create Black History Month.
Kirsten W. Larson 