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THE GREAT MIGRATION: JOURNEY TO THE NORTH

Great Migration
Author Information
Author's Last Name: 
Greenfield
Author's First Name: 
Eloise
Illustrator's First Name: 
Jan Spivey
Illustrator's Last Name: 
Gilchrist
Publisher: 
Amistad
Publication Date: 
2011
2013 Nomination (not yet selected): 

Thoughtful collages illustrating prose poems offer the emotions of those African Americans participating in the Great Migration between 1915 and 1930 and their reasons for taking the train trip north. Views include those of the young and the old traveling alone, families, parents waving goodbye to spouses, all united by their long journey to the unknown. Seven to Ten. Lynda Adamson

 

Haunting images and poetry combine to create a composite portrait of more than a million African Americans who left their homes in the South and moved to the North from 1915 through the 1930’s.

Comments

Meeting Notes for April

by ladamson - 04/21/2011 - 1:03pm

Meeting Notes for April 15

Positive Comments:
  • The different vignettes and matching illustrations reveal that every individual has a story as to why they are going north.
  • The stores of the angry woman going north because she is tired of fighting prejudice, and Eloise Greenfield’s own story create especially memorable voices.
  • The illustrations successfully complement the poems, with the people blending into the fields and the railroad tracks crossing many states to show how far-flung the travelers are.
  • The book fabulously introduces the history of this time.
 
Concerns:
  • The pictures seem to be unattributed variations of photographs, and actual source photographs might have been more appropriate.