Tar Beach

by Faith Ringgold

Overview

CORETTA SCOTT KING AWARD WINNER • CALDECOTT HONOR BOOK • A NEW YORK TIMES BEST ILLUSTRATED BOOK

Acclaimed artist Faith Ringgold seamless weaves fiction, autobiography, and African American history into a magical story that resonates with the universal wish for freedom, and will be cherished for generations.

Cassie Louise Lightfoot has a dream: to be free to go wherever she wants for the rest of her life. One night, up on “tar beach,” the rooftop of her family’s Harlem apartment building, her dreams come true. The stars lift her up, and she flies over the city, claiming the buildings and the city as her own.

As Cassie learns, anyone can fly. “All you need is somewhere to go you can’t get to any other way. The next thing you know, you’re flying among the stars.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780517885444
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	12/03/1996
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	35,816
Product dimensions:	8.66(w) x 9.26(h) x 0.09(d)
Lexile:	AD660L (what's this?)
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Faith Ringgold was born in Harlem in 1930. She received a degree in art education from the City College of New York and was an art teacher long before she became a professional artist. She is best known for her painted story quilts, some of which hang in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Tar Beach, Ringgold’s first book for children, won the Coretta Scott King Award for illustration and was named a Caldecott honor Book. Her other picture books include Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad in the Sky, My Dream of Martin Luther King, Cassie's Word Quilt, and We Came to America.

Learn more about Faith at faithringgold.com

Editorial Reviews

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.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

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

School Library Journal

"This allegorical tale sparkles with symbolic and historical references central to African-American culture.... A practical and stunningly beautiful book."—Horn Book, starred review

"The triumphant soaring of imagination over reality is beautifully expressed in Ringgold's bold, vibrant paintings….Beautiful, innovative, and full of the joy of one unconquerable soul." —Kirkus Reviews

"Ringgold's strong figures and flattened perspective bring a distinctive magic to this dreamy and yet wonderfully concrete vision, narrated in poetic cadences that capture the language and feel of flight." —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher