Board Book Review: Lullaby for a Black Mother

Lullaby for a Black Mother by Langston Hughes, illustrated by Sean Qualls.
Text copyright 1994, illustrations copyright 2013, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, MA.
Board book, 20 pages.

The text of a famous poem illustrated and reformatted as a board book.

Lullaby for a Black Mother by Langston Hughes, illustrated by Sean Qualls.

One of my children adores Langston Hughes, and I wish I’d had this when she was younger. Instead, I asked her to read it to the little one staying with us, and enjoyed her surprise and delight when she flipped back to the cover – “This is my poet!”

Of course, Langston Hughes died nearly half a century ago, so how is he still publishing new books? This isn’t new writing rediscovered – it’s a poem that can be found in Hughes’ collection for young readers, The Dream Keeper as well as his collected poems and probably elsewhere.

Where Lullaby for a Black Mother excels is in the alteration of the poem into the board book format. The poem is well broken down, with each spread containing between one phrase up to a full sentence worth of the poem. All of the text is entirely in all caps, which initially struck me as a bold choice, but makes sense for extending the life of the book.

Pages nine and ten contain the most text of any in the book, but also joyously evoke memories of a mother playing with her child.

The poem is excellent, as one would expect, with a nice balance of repetition and unique word choices to create rhythm and imagery. I won’t speak too much on the poem itself as it is widely available online and one can form personal judgements after reading and listening.

The text is just 74 words including the title and counting hyphenated words separately and since several repeat as many as five or six times, there are only 32 separate words used. That makes this easy to memorize after repeated readings – but even better, it’s well worth memorizing.

Baby is careening through the stars, riding Mother’s lullaby on pages seven and eight.

Turning to the illustrations, I’ve lambasted other books for being unrealistic in the depiction of children, but this is a lullaby. Only the beginning and end pages make any attempt at realism, and those are mostly accurate (although the infant’s hands on the final page spread are absurdly tiny in proportion). The mixed media technique Qualls employs is especially appropriate for this particular story, with glimpses of words or letters seen through the crib, the mother’s dress, the grass, clouds, and even a bird.

Qualls is illustrating a dream, a half-remembered lullaby as we drift off to sleep in our mother’s safe, comfortable embrace, and we all know dreams are not the place of realism. Most importantly, Qualls aptly captured the feel of Hughes’ poem. Both the text and most of the illustrations could stand alone, but taken together they enhance each other and create something better than either as only the best board books do.

Pages 19 and 20 bring the story to an admirable close, although the child’s hands are disproportionate.

This lovely present for new moms or book-loving toddlers does an admirable job making his poem accessible for the youngest readers. Highly recommended.