Book cover of Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library

Book description

In luminous paintings and arresting poems, two of children’s literature’s top African-American scholars track Arturo Schomburg’s quest to correct history.

Where is our historian to give us our side? Arturo asked.

Amid the scholars, poets, authors, and artists of the Harlem Renaissance stood an Afro–Puerto Rican named Arturo Schomburg. This…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Schomburg as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

As my kids are getting older, I keep my eyes open for longer, more complex picture books – and this book attracted my attention. It’s a great non-fiction biography for kids who like learning about notable historical personalities. It took roughly 45 minutes to read this book with the kids, and we all learned so much about Schomburg and his quest to collect literature by and about people of African descent worldwide. One thing that really impressed the kids and me was how he managed to keep this humongous collection in his home. (The kids and I were wondering if…

This book looks like a picture book, but with its large format, 48 pages, 4,519 words, and page-length poems, it is really for a middle school or older audience. It tells the fascinating story of how a passionate collector built a library to prove that African Americans have a history. Today that collection is the heart of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in the New York Public Library. The gorgeous paintings by Eric Velasquez will entrance everyone from preschooler to adult.

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