I Have Heard of a Land (Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Books) - Hardcover

Thomas, Joyce Carol

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060234776 ISBN 13: 9780060234775

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1998

Synopsis

I have heard of a land
Where the imagination has no fences
Where what is dreamed one night
Is accomplished the next day

In the late 1880s, signs went up all around America -- land was free in the Oklahoma territory. And it was free to everyone: Whites, Blacks, men and women alike. All one needed to stake a claim was hope and courage, strength and perseverance. Thousands of pioneers, many of them African-Americans newly freed from slavery, headed west to carve out a new life in the Oklahoma soil.

Drawing upon her own family history, National Book Award winner Joyce Carol Thomas has crafted an unforgettable anthem to these brave and determined people from America's past. Richly illustrated by Coretta Scott King Award honoree Floyd Cooper, I Have Heard of a Land is a glorious tribute to the Afrian-American pioneer spirit.

National Book Award-winning author Joyce Carol Thomas draws on family history for this lyrical account of America's little-known past. In the late 1880s, thousands of pioneers, many African Americans newly freed from slavery, raced to the Oklahoma Territory. Here all one needed to stake a claim was hope and courage and the determination to journey west. Richly illustrated by Coretta Scott King Award Honor -- recipient Floyd Cooper and complete with an author's endnote, I Have Heard of a Land commemorates the strength of the African-American pioneers. It is a hymn to liberty and unity, an ode to a land where what can be dreamed can be accomplished.

00-01 Sequoyah Children's Book Award Masterlist

About this title

About the Author

Joyce Carol Thomas is an internationally renowned author who received the National Book Award for her first novel, Marked By Fire, and a Coretta Scott King Honor for The Blacker the Berry and for her first picture book, Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea. Her picture book I Have Heard of a Land received a Coretta Scott King Honor and an IRA/CBC Teachers' Choice Award and was an ALA Notable Book. Her other titles include The Gospel Cinderella, Crowning Glory, Gingerbread Days, and A Gathering of Flowers. Ms. Thomas lives in Berkeley, California.

From Publishers Weekly

Inspired by her own family's history, Thomas's (Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea) stirring picture book explores the little-known experiences of African American pioneers who settled in Oklahoma during the late 1800s. This moving, poetic account of a brave black woman who stakes a claim "where the cottonwood trees are innocent/ Where the coyote's call is a lullaby at night/ And the land runs on forever" offers a new perspective on an era otherwise well-documented in picture books and school texts. In almost palpable imagery, Thomas describes the natural beauty of a bold new frontier as well as the hopeful, strong and passionate people who created new lives there and realized their dreams. In his third collaboration with Thomas, Cooper (Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea, Gingerbread Days), an Oklahoma native, completes the mood with his signature grainy, dreamy oil-wash portraits. His landscapes, dotted with trees, crops and cabins, glow in soft pink, yellow and brown hues. Scenes of a girl soaring on a homemade swing, neighbors worshipping in the open air and building a log house are particularly uplifting. The book stands alone as a pleasant slice of historical fiction, but will also hold much appeal for teachers and students. Thomas's author's note about the book's origins adds a special resonance to the proceedings. Ages 7-11.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0060234776
• ISBN 13: 9780060234775
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Cooper Floyd