I am African American

School Library Journal

K-Gr 3--Turk speaks through the voice of Jesse, an African-American child from a middle-class family living in Queens, NY. The boy introduces his family and discusses their African roots and their admiration for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Kwanzaa, soul food, traditional African clothing, as well as African-American contributions to music. The child's voice exudes a feeling of pride in his cultural heritage. The text uses straightforward sentence structure and provides phonetic pronunciations for less-familiar words. The crisp, full-color photographs are superb and add to the appeal of the book. Unfortunately, there is a factual error. The author states that Africans were brought to America and sold as slaves "beginning in the 1700s," when in fact this barbaric practice began in the 1600s. Still, this is a good choice for most collections.--Eunice Weech, M. L. King Elementary School, Urbana, IL