A Street Called Home

Children's Literature - Trina Heidt

Robinson has captured the vibrant 1940's life of the African-American population of Mount Vernon Avenue in Columbus, Ohio using brilliant, eye-catching illustrations that do not leave any space untouched. Done with lift-the-flaps, this accordion style books folds out to reveal the many busy characters that can be found walking up and down the bustling, crowded avenue trying to make a living by buying, selling, and bartering and proving that "Everything you could need you find on Mount Vernon Avenue." To name a few, you will find the Brownyskin man, the Chickenfoot woman and the Ragman offering their goods and services. Once you find them, you need to lift the flaps to find out exactly what it is that they do. Robinson's attempt to show us what life was actually like at that place and at that time provides a wonderful history lesson that is sure to keep readers exploring A Street Called Home.

School Library Journal

K-Gr 3In a sweeping depiction of one street, Mount Vernon Avenue, in the real African-American development called Poindexter Village, Robinson has captured the life of a self-sustaining community of the 1940s. Accordion pages fold out to carry readers along the street crowded with shops, people, and things to buy. Centered on each page is a flap that, when lifted, tells what the featured vendor is selling. There's Doctor Kickapoo, the medicine man; the "brownyskin" man who sells pork rinds; the chickenfoot woman, frying them on the street; the vegetable man; the iceman; the sockman (who washes and mends old socks); and the umbrella man. This painting is stitched with chunks of thread, sometimes holding down buttons or beads and sometimes patches of cloth that could be pieces from the rag man. The boldly colored streetscape spreads out to the edges of each page and is so filled with detail that it will take many sittings to take it all in. In a preface, Robinson tells readers that Poindexter Village was built to replace a shantytown in Columbus, Ohio, a stopping place for blacks moving up from the South. Poring over the scenes, children will see history in action. Once opened, the book can be set up to stretch out and be displayed. It's a sure thing that the ribbons supplied to hold the package together will seldom be tied again.Karen Breen, New Visions for Public Schools, New York City

Kirkus Reviews

In an accordion book with flaps, an extraordinary celebration of Mount Vernon Avenue, a street that sprang from an Ohio shantytown called the Blackberry Patch that was the destination for many African-Americans pushing north during the turn of the century. The book is an eyeful, in bold and swarming colors; the characters readers meet (their names and occupations are spelled out under the flaps) seem fabulous, but it's clear they were ordinary fixtures on Mount Vernon Avenue—"a self-sufficient street, it knew how to survive." There is the Sockman, who washes and mends old socks; Doctor Kickapoo, the Medicineman, with his peach leaves for rheumatism and pouches of asafetida and greegree; the Cameraman; the Chickenfoot woman. The pages can be flipped and read, but children will want to pull the whole accordion out and revel in the pulsing street scene. There is an agreeable sentimentality to this 1940s tableaux that refuses to go pretty, a sense that readers are witnessing the real thing.