We Are Here (An All Because You Matter Book) (Digital Read Along)
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
An empowering follow-up to New York Times bestselling picture book All Because You Matter that celebrates the rich history of Black and brown men and women throughout history with soaring language and stunning illustration.
Lyrical, affirmational, and bursting with love, We Are Here is a poignant story about Black and brown heritage and community. Full of assurance, tenderness, and triumph, this much-anticipated follow-up to the New York Times bestselling picture book All Because You Matter offers an equally inspirational and arresting ode to all of the Black women and men throughout history who have made momentous contributions from the beginning of time.
Tami Charles shares the beauty and excellence in the history of the Black community, assuring Black and brown children of the extraordinary legacy from which they come. Charles's powerful and empowering text is accompanied with illustrations by renowned artist Bryan Collier, a four-time Caldecott Honor recipient and a nine-time Coretta Scott King Award winner or honoree. We Are Here celebrates readers with pride, joy, and love, reminding them of their roots, inviting readers to imagine a future that shines ever bright, and strengthening them for their triumphant days to come!
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this follow-up to All Because You Matter, collaborators Charles and Collier meld pithy, free-verse lines and saturated illustrations to form an empowering treatise that celebrates the Black diaspora across time and space. Attending images of a Black child whose pigtail puffs are shown as holding elements of the universe, early lines focus on individual promise ("We are the seeds,/ you and me") contextualized against history ("From brick and grit,/ we built this place"). Subsequent pages visualize Black figures—including Martin Luther King Jr., Marian Anderson, Howlin' Wolf, and Muddy Waters—taking part in activism, fashion, food production, and music: "We are intercontinental,/ can't you see?.../ Trend-setters,/ Go-getters,.../ multidialectal,/ oh-so-intellectual." Stunning watercolor and collage art—inspired, per a creator's note, by a John Biggers painting of shotgun houses—juxtaposes the structures and other patterned elements to create a shining, surreal dimensionality that supports the book's affirming conceit: "We are fearless, more than we know... Because you and me have always been heroes." Back matter includes creators' notes, and contextualizes figures and contributions discussed. Ages 4–8.
