Beautiful Book #3

If the world keeps insisting on being this ugly, ugly place, I am going to keep posting these.

blues journey by Walter Dean Myers, illustrated by Christopher Myers. Holiday House, 2003.

An explanation and history of blues music brackets this book, but the contents comprise a series stunningly illustrated call and response blues lyrics. The book makes my list on the power of its blue, black and earth-tone illustrations. I am not as impressed with overall book design, particularly the placement of words on the page, but still, Christopher Myers' illustrations here and elsewhere are in a class of their own. 

His father and the book's author, the great Walter Dean Myers, passed away last month, but you can read one of the last things he wrote here, an opinion piece for the NYT on the paucity of children's books by people of colour and the societal implications that are borne from it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/opinion/sunday/where-are-the-people-of-color-in-childrens-books.html?_r=0