Infinite Hope

September 15, 2019
Renowned artist and children's-book creator Bryan shares his journey through World War II. Best known for his brightly colored paintings of flowers and joyful scenes, here Bryan shares a part of his life that was less bright. Bryan was in his third year of art school when he was recruited to join the U.S. Army in 1943. Training for service in an all-black battalion, being deployed to Europe to fight with the Allied Forces on D-Day, and spending months trying to get his men back home--these experiences did not stop Bryan from pursuing his development as an artist. He was always drawing and sketching, and his fellow soldiers and even some of his superiors encouraged him to do so. His years in the Army are effectively detailed in a multimedia format that has the intimate feel of a scrapbook being shared by the author. The main text is a retrospective narration surrounded by extensive primary documents: old photographs and documents, handwritten letters (whose contents are also set in a small blue type for easier reading), paintings, and sketches, both standing alone and overlaid on top of photographs. So many unique yet universal aspects of the human experience are touched upon in this lovingly shared memoir: the passion that kept an artist going through the most difficult times, the contradictions of war against Nazism with segregation at home and within the U.S. Army. Watching Bryan generously transform the bittersweet into beauty is watching the meaning of art. (note, sources, index) (Memoir. 10-adult)

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Starred review from October 14, 2019
This stirring visual memoir of WWII is a personal departure for Bryan (Freedom Over Me), an artist best known for his vibrantly illustrated folktales and poetry for children. Drafted during 1943, his third year at Cooper Union, Bryan found the U.S. Army segregated in baffling and infuriating ways. Barred from most meaningful work, soldiers of color were limited to service as custodians and laborers. They sat at the backs of buses while German POWs laughed and joked up front. Despite the injustice, Bryan used every spare minute to grow as an artist, and with his supplies stashed with his gas mask, he drew and drew, even under threat of punishment: “the harder it was to draw, the more important it was to do it!” Bryan’s own drawings and paintings, letters to his college friend Eva (“I’m really writing you Eva now to cheer me up”), wartime photographs, and text combine in generous, beautifully designed spreads to produce a multimedia experience on each page. Illuminating, disturbing, and ultimately triumphant, this account of WWII, as seen through the eyes of a soldier of color and an artist of extraordinary power, is a precious resource for readers of all ages. Ages 10–up.

October 11, 2019

Gr 6 Up-Part memoir, part social history, part artist's sketchbook, this title offers a rare insight into the treatment of black soldiers serving in World War II. Bryan, a renowned children's book creator and Newbery Honoree and Coretta Scott King Award winner, offers an impressionistic work. After facing discrimination when he applied to college, Bryan earned a scholarship to Cooper Union in New York. Just when he thought he was on his way to achieving his dream of working as an artist, 19-year-old Bryan was drafted into the United States Army in 1943. Although he'd encountered prejudice before, Bryan was surprised by the level of segregation he experienced in the military. Black recruits were immediately separated from white ones; they were assigned dangerous "service" jobs and were not offered the same opportunities to advance. Bryan used art as a way to feed his spirit as he faced perilous assignments, including taking part in the D-Day invasion and sleeping in a foxhole on Omaha Beach for months. Unlike his 2009 autobiography, Words to My Life's Song, this book focuses on one period of Bryan's life and touches upon larger social issues, namely the treatment of black soldiers. VERDICT This unique book, at times both beautiful and sadly horrifying, deserves to be studied and savored.-Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, St. Christopher's School, Richmond, VA

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