Children - Fiction & Literature, Fiction - People, Places & Cultures

Tar Beach

Name: Tar Beach
Author: Faith Ringgold
ISBN: 9780517885444

by Faith Ringgold

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Overview

Illus. in full color. "Ringgold recounts the dream adventure of eight-year-old Cassie Louise Lightfoot, who flies above her apartment-building rooftop, the 'tar beach' of the title, looking down on 1939 Harlem. Part autobiographical, part fictional, this allegorical tale sparkles with symbolic and historical references central to African-American culture. The spectacular artwork resonates with color and texture. Children will delight in the universal dream of mastering one's world by flying over it. A practical and stunningly beautiful book."—(starred) Horn Book.

A young girl dreams of flying above her Harlem home, claiming all she sees for herself and her family. Based on the author's quilt painting of the same name.

About the Author, Faith Ringgold

Faith Ringgold was born in Harlem, but now divides her time between New Jersey and La Jolla, California. She is a professor of fine art at the University of California at San Diego, where she teaches for half of the year.

An artist of international renown, Faith is best known for her story quilts — works that combine painting, quilted fabric, and storytelling.

Faith's first book for children, Tar Beach, was a Caldecott Honor Book, a winner of the Coretta Scott King Award for illustration, a Reading Rainbow featured selection, a New York Times Best Illustrated Book, and the recipient of numerous other honors, including a Parents Choice Gold Award.

Faith is married to Burdette Ringgold and has two daughters, Michele and Barbara, and three granddaughters, Faith, Teddy and Martha.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A girl uses her imagination to soar from the "tar beach" roof of her family's Harlem home. "Ringgold's strong figures and flattened perspective bring a distinctive magic to this dreamy and yet wonderfully concrete vision," said PW. All ages. (Jan.)

School Library Journal

Gr 1 Up--Tar Beach is a work of modern art translated into a children's picture book, and the adaptation is so natural that it seems inevitable. From her 1988 story quilt, reproduced on the cover and within the last pages of the book, Ringgold has taken both the setting and the text. The painted scene in the center of the quilt shows a Harlem rooftop on a starry night with four adults playing cards and with Cassie Louise Lightfoot and her brother, Be Be, lying on a blanket gazing at the sky. Cassie sees herself flying over the city lights; dreams of wearing the George Washington Bridge as a necklace; imagines giving her father the union building he is not allowed to join because of his half-black, half-Indian heritage; flies over the ice cream factory; and takes her little brother with her to the sky. Cassie's story, written along the borders of the quilt in tiny script, becomes the text of the book. The illustrations painted for the book version are done in the same colorful, naive style as the quilt. This type of art translates beautifully into the storybook format, and a border of bright fabric designs on the bottom of each page duplicates the material used in the quilt. In capturing the euphoria of a child's dreams, and in its gentle reminder of the social injustices of the adult world, the book is both universal and contemporary. --Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ