Review by Booklist Review
The boisterous sea, faraway lands, and exotic creatures are the stuff of children's dreams. In Sail Away, storyteller and artist Bryan uses his talents to select and illustrate a collection of Hughes' sea poems, sure to capture hearts and imaginations. Who can resist Big Boy, who comes carrying a mermaid / on his shoulders? Hughes' simple words paint the picture, but Bryan's kinetic, colorful hand-cut paper collages make it pop. The text for Long Trip (We dip and dive / Rise and roll) is placed in the barrel of a cresting wave, while boats swirl around and day and night appear almost merged. Water-Front Streets captures the longing of lads who put out to sea in a spread that vibrates with tropical color and contains figures with arms uplifted. There are 16 inspirational poems in all, and, as if to remind readers that roots are important, too, Bryan begins and closes the book with endpapers featuring pictures of his mother's scissors the ones he used to create his art. An inviting presentation of Hughes' poetry.--McDermott, Jeanne Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Hughes may be best known for his work tied to questions of racial and national identity, yet these 15 collected poems-about the movement of water, the sea, and its travelers-show a more playful side of the poet. The first entry, "Catch," is about the courtship between a human and a mermaid ("Being a fisher boy,/ He'd found a fish/ To carry-/ Half fish,/ Half girl/ To marry"), while "Moonlight Night: Carmel" describes the sea after dark: "Tonight the waves march/ In long ranks/ cutting the darkness/ With their silver shanks." Each poem enjoys a spread of its own, and Bryan's kaleidoscopic cut-paper collages feature rolling, roiling waves whose shapes are echoed in drifts of clouds, beams of sunlight, and flowing tendrils of hair belonging to a cast of sailors, explorers, fishermen, and children. Bryan adds a personal homage to his mother, a note explains, by including images of her embroidery scissors on the endpapers (he used the same scissors to create his cutouts for the book). A vibrant pairing of poetry and art. Ages 4-8. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 1-5-For this stunning volume, Bryan has selected and illustrated a collection of Hughes's sea-themed poems. Over his 46-year career, the famed poet chronicled his life traveling the world as a seaman. Bryan has created brightly colored cut-paper collage spreads to celebrate Hughes's mermaids, sailors, ocean waves, and experiences of living and working near the water. In "Moonlight Night: Carmel," the beautifully evocative text ("Tonight the waves march/In long ranks/Cutting the darkness/With their silver shanks") is perfectly matched by a glorious explosion of color and movement as sharp-edged waves meet the moon and sky. The final poem is "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," Hughes's famous chronicle of the black experience through the ages, which pays tribute to all who have gone before and the legacy that they leave behind. Bryan matches this acknowledgement to legacy by including a photograph of his mother's scissors on the endpapers. He notes that she used them for sewing and embroidery but that he has used them for cutting the colored papers for all the collage compositions in the book. VERDICT An impressive picture book of poetry to be read, reread, and cherished for generations to come.-Carole Phillips, Greenacres Elementary School, Scarsdale, NY © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Using his mothers sewing scissors, reproduced on the endpapers as adornments to sailing ships, Ashley Bryan crafts vivid paper collages to illustrate a selection of water-related poetry by Langston Hughes. Bryan seems to draw on Henri Matisse as inspiration, in technique, color, line, and shape. From the curvaceous forms of waves and seaweed to the visible marks and seams of the paper cuttings, the echoes are clear. Bryans construction-paper palettea rainbow of pastels, jewel tones, browns, and graysvibrates with energy; every spread features warm oranges, yellows, and pinks juxtaposed against cooler blues and greens in swirls of high contrast. Happy faces, in a variety of dark complexions, smile up from boats and riverbanks, populating a brilliant world. At times the sunny vitality of the imagery feels at odds with the heavier themes in some of the verse. The poem Jaime, for example, concludes with somber resignation: He sits on a hill / Looking out to sea / Toward a mirage-land / That will never be. And yet, Bryans spread is suffused with light. In that tension Bryan establishes a powerful subtext; in the unapologetic affirmation of the collages, he proclaims a refusal to succumb. No matter the circumstances, every day is one for celebration. thom barthelmess (c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Hughes' pen is paired to Bryan's sculpting scissors, making a rich, poetic picture book indeed. "Literature is a big sea full of many fish. I let down my nets and pulled. I'm still pulling." Thus ends Langston Hughes' autobiography, The Big Sea (1945), and here begins the subject of Bryan's compilation. He chooses both familiar poems, such as "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," and less-well-known ones, such as "Sailor," to explore all things aquatic, both domestic and international. Reflecting Hughes' adventures seeing the world via its waterways, the poems feature mermaids, waves, bridges, meeting merchants from all over, and more. Bryan's intricate and colorful cut-paper collage illustrations breathe new life into the poems. The artist also pays homage to his mother, including photographs of her sewing and embroidering scissors on the endpapersthe same scissors he used to cut the images for these illustrations. Readers don't have to have ever heard Bryan's unforgettable, theatrical recitation of "My People" or other Hughes poems to understand the depth of the artist's appreciation of and admiration for Hughes and his poetry: he opens the poems up visually here in the same way that he opens them auditorily when he performs them live. Like Hughes, Bryan, at 91, can also boast, "I'm still pulling." (Picture book/poetry. 5-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
