NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
In this beautiful picture book in two parts, meet Harlem: the girl and the neighborhood. Part one follows the adventures of a little girl named Harlem and her single father as they go on a museum “playdate” with painters Romare Bearden and Jean-Michel Basquiat, listen to John Coltrane records, and conduct science experiments in their apartment (“The volcano erupts /Red lava on Valentine’s Day!”).
Part two takes us back to the fourth year of the twentieth century in Harlem the neighborhood. Here, we are introduced to Philip A. Payton Jr., aka Papa Payton, whose Afro-American Realty Company gave birth to the Black housing explosion, helping to start America’s Great Black Migration. Because of Papa Peyton, Black families—like Harlem and her father a century later—could move to Harlem and thrive and flourish.
This is a completely unique, absolutely gorgeous picture book by a New York Times bestselling author and a Coretta Scott King Award-winning illustrator that weaves together the lives of a modern Black family and a historically Black neighborhood in New York City.
Author
Michael Datcher
Michael Datcher is a poet and critically acclaimed journalist who has written for the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The Baltimore Sun, and has appeared as a guest analyst on numerous television and radio shows, including Nightline and Dateline. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is the director of literary programs at the World Stage Writers’ Workshop.
Learn More about Michael DatcherIllustrator
Frank Morrison
Frank Morrison started his journey as a graffiti artist in New Jersey, tagging walls with spray paint. It wasn’t until he visited the Louvre Museum in Paris with his dance group that he realized painting was his true creative path. His work has been featured at Art Basel, SCOPE Miami Beach, and Red Dot art fairs, and shown at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. He is the illustrator of over twenty children’s books, including the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award winners Standing in the Need of Prayer and R-E-S-P-E-C-T, the Coretta Scott King–John Steptoe Award winner Jazzy Miz Mozetta, and the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor books Little Melba and Her Big Trombone and Let the Children March. Frank now lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Learn More about Frank Morrison