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Gr 6-Up By offering glimpses into George Washington Carver's life story through a series of lyrical poems, the structure of Nelson's book is as inspired as its occasional use of black-and-white photographs as illustrations. The poems are simple, sincere, and sometimes so beautiful they seem not works of artifice, but honest statements of pure, natural truths ("Th...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

A series of fifty-nine poems portrays George Washington Carver (c.1864-1943) as a private, scholarly man of great personal faith and social purpose. Nelson fills in the trajectory of Carver's life with details of the cultural and political contexts that shaped him even as he shaped history. Rescued from slave-stealers in Missouri, the orphaned black infant is raised by the white couple who owned his mother. He earns advanced degrees, opens the agriculture department at Booker T. Washington's all-black Tuskegee Institute, and is recognized by the National Agricultural Society and the Royal Society for the Arts. Throughout his life, he teaches, he paints, he dreams. In the final poem, Carver dies as the Tuskegee Airmen (among them the poet's father) make "a sky-r...Log In or Sign Up to Read More