Between the lines How Ernie Barnes went from the football field to the art gallery

Sandra Neil Wallace

Book - 2018

Discover the true story of NFL star Ernie Barnes -- a boy who followed his dreams and became one of the most influential artists of his generation with this beautifully illustrated nonfiction picture book.

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Subjects
Genres
Biographies
Published
New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers [2018]
Language
English
Main Author
Sandra Neil Wallace (author)
Other Authors
Bryan Collier (illustrator)
Edition
First edition
Item Description
"A Paula Wiseman Book."
Physical Description
1 volume (unpaged) : color illustrations ; 32 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN
9781481443876
Contents unavailable.
Review by New York Times Review

How should adults present the grave injustices throughout black history to young readers? Biographies can help. HISTORY IS A STORY like any other, but black history is a story so devoid of logic that it frustrates the young reader. The young readers in my house, told of slavery and segregation, asked in disbelief: "What? Why?" We - the parents of black children, the parents of all children - still need to tell that story. It comforts the adult conscience to remember that amid history's grave injustices there were still great lives. Hence, I suspect, the preponderance of biographies for children published to coincide with Black History Month. Among that genre's newest arrivals are names familiar to adults, as in THE UNITED STATES V. JACKIE ROBINSON (HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray, $17.99, ages 4 to 8), written by Sudipta BardhanQuallen. This picture book is more interested in young Robinson's less-known act of resistance during his Army days than in his later, trailblazing career as a baseball player. It's nice to have an athlete celebrated for personal integrity over physical prowess, and R. Gregory Christie's pictures bolster this, evoking a Robinson who is strong and sure, but also smiling, warm, and ultimately, triumphant. Ella Fitzgerald is more than a familiar name; understanding this, Helen Hancocks has called her new picture book ELLA QUEEN OF JAZZ (Frances Lincoln Children's Books/Quarto, $17.99; ages 4 to 8). Hancocks's illustrations are superb - bright and suitably retro in style. But her tale takes a turn that is not the one Fitzgerald deserves. The focus is mostly on how Fitzgerald's friendship with Marilyn Monroe helped her career, and the movie star, alas, upstages the singer. BEFORE SHE WAS HARRIET (Holiday House, $17.95; ages 4 to 8) is a straightforward picture-book biography of the exceptional Harriet Ttibman. In minimalist verse, Lesa Cline-Ransome begins with the woman in her dotage, then walks readers back through her years as suffragist, spy and liberator - but also, importantly, as a woman who simply wanted to be free. James E. Ransome's lovely watercolor illustrations capture Ttibman's daring, her joy and her dignity. Sandra Neil Wallace's BETWEEN THE LINES: How Ernie Barnes Went From the Football Field to the Art Gallery (Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman, $17.99; ages 4 to 8), illustrated by Bryan Collier, is a beautiful testament to a quintessentially American life. Wallace and Collier celebrate both Barnes's success on the gridiron and his subsequent reinvention as an artist. As in "The United States v. Jackie Robinson," athleticism is a secondary concern; early on, we see the young Barnes in a museum, wondering where the black painters are, and the story ends with contemporary young museumgoers being shown Barnes's art. This choice makes the story so satisfying, and just what you want at bedtime. In LET THE CHILDREN MARCH (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers, $17.99; ages 6 to 9) Monica Clark-Robinson tells one girl's story of the 1963 children's march on Birmingham. Frank Morrison's illustrations are loose and modern in spirit, enlivening the history lesson. It's understandable to want to channel Martin Luther King Jr.'s oratorical gifts when writing about him, but sometimes the metaphors strain. Still, the book's message is clear and bracing: King understood that it's children who will lead the way, and the man's faith in the future is reassuring even now. Two biographical compendiums, Vashti Harrison's LITTLE LEADERS: Bold Women in Black History (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, $16.99; ages 8 to 12) and Jamia Wilson and Andrea Pippins's YOUNG, GIFTED AND BLACK (Wide Eyed Editions/Quarto, $22.99; ages 7 to 10) are, by contrast, not bedtime reading but texts that belong in any home library, to be revisited again and again. Wilson's book celebrates a variety of black achievement; there are biographical sketches of Kofi Annan and Stevie Wonder, Solange Knowles and Naomi Campbell, accompanied by Andrea Pippins's illustrations, full of verve but also quite dignified. The candy-colored pages and straightforward stories are hard to resist, and will doubtless forever shape the way many readers think about Wangari Maathai and Langston Hughes. Harrison's book focuses on great black women, and it's lovely to see Lorna Simpson and Gwen Ifill ascend to the ranks of Marian Anderson and Bessie Coleman. Harrison wants readers to imagine themselves in such august company; her adorable illustrations depict all of these figures as a little black girl, an everygirl, in a variety of costumes and backdrops. Harrison and Wilson have similar projects. But which book is better? I'd like to point out that my sons own around 40 volumes on the subject of trucks. Young readers deserve both these books. FOR OLDER READERS The person most qualified to tell the tale of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the man himself, as gifted an intellect as he is an athlete. Written with Raymond Obstfeld, his autobiography, BECOMING KAREEM: Growing Up On and Off the Court (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, $17.99; ages 10 and up) is aimed at middle grade readers but could and should be read aloud to younger kids. It's a tale by a wise elder - about basketball, sure, but also about cultural, political, social and religious awakenings, big stuff narrated in a very accessible way. MARTIN RISING: Requiem for a King (Scholastic, $19.99; ages 9 to 12) is a collaboration by two of children's literature's most well-known names, Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney (who happen to be married). It's a work of verse, with some prose end matter to help elucidate the poems, and it will reward a reader sophisticated enough to grapple with language and metaphor. Andrea Davis Pinkney frames her poem cycle about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s last months with the figure of Henny Penny, the bird who either worried or prophesied, and she makes King's death feel as significant as the falling of the sky above. It is, of course, a terrible and sad story, but one in which Brian Pinkney's illustrations manage to find beauty. King is an evergreen subject, so significant and complex that the story of his life and death can withstand repeated tellings. James L. Swanson's CHASING KING'S KILLER: The Hunt for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Assassin (Scholastic, $19.99; ages 12 and up) is a departure, less classroom text than airport thriller. It's a bit like sneaking kale into brownies: Swanson offers plenty of context on King's activism and his turbulent times, but frames the book as a manhunt for James Earl Ray. This approach makes education feel more like entertainment, and will prove seductive to even a reluctant older reader. My children are too young, yet, for Swanson's thriller and the Pinkneys' elegiac tribute, or maybe I simply want to believe that they are. They have a lifetime of reading ahead, particularly if they are to meet Dr. King's expectations for them. For now, my boys can suspend disbelief and accept that Pippi Longstocking can lift a horse and plays with pistols. But they won't be able to believe what happened to Dr. King in Memphis. Who among us can? RUMAAN alam is the author of two novels, "Rich and Pretty" and "That Kind of Mother," which will be published next month.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 30, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Growing up in North Carolina during the 1940s and '50s, Ernie Barnes was a quiet black kid who loved to draw and paint. Though he had little interest in sports, he excelled at high-school football and earned a scholarship to college, where an art teacher inspired him to paint what he saw around him. He played in the NFL for five years before retiring to devote himself to art. Barnes painted what he knew, from neighborhood memories to football players in action. As a college student, he once asked to see paintings by African American artists at the local art museum and was told, Your people don't express themselves in that way. He knew otherwise. Years later, the same museum exhibited his paintings. The book's lengthy, helpful back matter includes several of Barnes' paintings as well as notes by the author and illustrator. Coauthor of Blood Brother (2016) and Bound by Ice (2017), Wallace tells the story using specific details and a broad perspective that heighten its meaning. Collier's expressive, unconventional illustrations, created with watercolors and collage, use rich colors and overlapping images to portray Barnes growing from a shy child to a self-assured artist. A visually striking, enlightening picture-book biography.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2018 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

This rich portrait of an innovative and determined artist begins with Ernie Barnes as a child in the segregated South. Despite a desire to pursue art, football was Barnes's ticket to college, where he visited museums for the first time and was dismayed to find no black artists represented ("Your people don't express themselves in that way," a docent told him). But Barnes refused to abandon his artwork, even after being drafted as a professional footballer. Collier's multidimensional collages are a dynamic mix of gridiron action and quiet moments of Barnes with his brushes and canvases. It's a well-sourced, stirringly told account of an artist drawing inspiration from and finding beauty in the immediate surroundings of his world. Ages 4-8. Author's agent: Liza Voges, Eden Street Literary. Illustrator's agent: Marcia Wernick, Wernick & Pratt. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 1-4-The pursuit of dreams and the resilience of the human spirit shine in this illustrated biography of one of the world's greatest sports artists. Growing up in the segregated south, Ernie Barnes loved to draw and rarely left home without his sketchbook. Shy, quiet, and often picked on, Barnes found his voice by painting what he observed in his surroundings: families walking, an old man snoring, the junk man peddling. When he grew to be six foot three, he was recruited for the high school football team and eventually earned a sports scholarship to an all-black university. Still, Barnes was discouraged: he wanted to be an artist instead of an athlete. His art teacher inspired him to paint what he saw, and suddenly his calling was realized: he will paint football, seeing the beauty in what before was ordinary. Barnes would go on to make the NFL, play for the Colts, and paint his first football painting, The Bench, a work that would define his career for years to come. After leaving football for good, his professional dream was fully realized when he was invited to become the official artist for the American Football League: "When I became an athlete, I didn't stop being an artist." Collier's illustrations are storytellers on their own, blending emulations of Barnes's work with dynamic, mixed-media imagery that enhances the book's historical relevance. VERDICT An absolutely indispensable illustrated biography that will remind readers of all ages that it's never too late to pursue their dreams.-Natalie -Romano, Denver Public Library © Copyright 2018. 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

Professional football player Ernie Barnes (19382009) considered himself first and foremost an artist. This engrossing picture-book biography traces his life through his childhood in segregated North Carolina, debilitating injuries, and financial struggles to the long-in-coming New York gallery show of his paintings. Watercolor and collage illustrations capture mood, setting, and action but wisely don't mimic Barnes's style; several painting reproductions are appended. Reading list. Bib. (c) Copyright 2019. 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

Not even the thrill of football could dissuade Ernie Barnes from pursuing his artistic dream.Born in 1938 in Durham, North Carolina, Ernie grew up a quiet kid in an African-American family with a mother who exposed her children to music and art despite the segregation of museums and performance halls. While his 6-foot-3-inch frame in high school prompted the football coach to recruit him, Ernie never felt as passionately about football as he did about art. He would sit on the bench and sketch the plays anytime he wasn't on the field, which his coaches did not always appreciate. When Ernie's successful professional football career slowed, he approached the American Football League (which merged with the National Football League in 1970) to become their official artist. While this is not an own-voices story for Wallace, both her extensive research and her prior career as an ESPN reporter make her well-qualified to tell this story. African-American artist Collier captures Barnes' life as only another dedicated artist could: with skill, a strong sense of place, and hints throughout of Barnes' artistic style. Collier's cover image encapsulates so much of Barnes' fascinating story that, after reading the book, children can revisit the cover to discover its clues.A biography with appeal for sports fans and budding artists alike, it will also beckon to any reader who appreciates a well-told, artfully illustrated story. (author's and illustrator's notes, resources, quote sources) (Picture book/biography. 4-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.