 This year’s featured guest just won the 2008 Coretta Scott King Book Award in illustration for “Let It Shine” and was named a 2008 NAACP Image Award winner; he will receive that award during a special ceremony in mid-February. Bryan has written and/or illustrated a number of award-winning children’s books, including “The Ox of the Wonderful Horns and Other African Folktales”; “The Dancing Granny”; “Beat the Story-Drum, Pum-Pum”; “The Cat’s Purr”; “Beautiful Blackbird”; and others. Bryan, who has been writing and illustrating children’s books for more than 30 years, has lectured widely and appeared at schools and colleges across the country. He has been a May Hill Arbuthnot lecturer and the recipient of numerous other awards, including a previous King Award for “Beat the Drum-Story, Pum-Pum.” He lives in Islesford, Maine, one of the Cranberry Islands off the coast of Mount Desert Island, where his paintings of island flowers are shown and sold at a local gallery. Bryan, who grew up during the Great Depression and whose father’s love of birds led to a collection of more than 100 birds that lived in their Bronx apartments, was surrounded by music and art as he grew up. His parents enrolled him in free art and music lessons provided by the Works Progress Administration during the 1930s, a program which created jobs for the unemployed. He began making his own books in elementary school, starting with illustrated ABC and counting books. “I was the author, illustrator, binder and distributor,” recalls Bryan. “… That feeling for the homemade book is at the heart of my bookmaking today.”
| He adds, “Reading aloud from the poems of African-American poets has greatly influenced the prose of my stories. Their poems inspire the vocal play that I carry into my retelling of the African tales. Whenever I do programs, I always read first from the African-American poets. This prepares my audience for my emphasis on the sound of the voice in the printed word as I read my retelling of the African tales … and I always close my programs with black American spirituals.” Bryan says, “There is a poem by the Senegalese poet Leopold Sedar Senghor in which he unites childhood to Eden, present to past, and life to death with the line ‘a tender bridge connects them.’ That lovely phrase stays with me as I retell and illustrate African stories.” 
| MEET ASHLEY BRYAN…. In His Own Words
| |||
 | My earliest childhood recollections are of my mother singing. She sang from one end of the day to the other. My father used to say, "Son, your mother must think she's a bird. "For his part, my father loved birds. Although his earnings as a printer were modest and there were six children to support, he couldn't resist buying birds. The living rooms of our various Bronx apartments were always lined with shelves, not for books, but for birds. At one time, I counted over one hundred birds in his collection. My mother would say, "If I want any attention around here, I'll have to get in a cage." My father played a number of instruments: saxophone, guitar, banjo--and there was always a piano in the house. |
|
We grew up in the 1930s during the Great Depression. The government found the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to create jobs for the unemployed. Artists and musicians were hired to teach in communities around the country. My parents sent us out to these free art and music classes. "Learn to entertain yourself," they said. I learned this early because I cannot remember a time when I have not been drawing and painting. In elementary school, I began to make books. My first books, made in kindergarten, were illustrated ABC and counting books. | |
|
At the time, the entire book production was in my hands. I was the author, illustrator, binder, and distributor. These one of-a-kind "limited editions" drew rave reviews from family and friends and were given as gifts on all occasions. That feeling for the handmade book is at the heart of my bookmaking today. As a student at the Cooper Union Art School, I began a project illustrating African tales. I knew the profound influence of African art on Western art. I decided to use the abundant African art resources in New York City museums and libraries for this project. "Reading aloud from the poems of the African American poets has greatly influenced the prose of my stories." |  |
|
I began my career as an illustrator by working on a few small projects, but nothing substantial came from them. Then editor Jean Karl came to my studio in the Bronx, saw my varied book projects, and sent me a contract to begin work with Atheneum Publishers. When my African tale illustrations were to be used in a book, we knew that the documented forms lacked the storytelling spirit of the oral tradition. Jean Karl urged me to tell the stories in my own way and that is what I continue to do. Reading aloud from the poems of the African American poets has greatly influenced the prose of my stories. Their poems inspire the vocal play that I carry into my retelling of the African tales. Whenever I do programs, I always read first from the African American poets. This prepares the audience for my emphasis on the sound of the voice in the printed word as I read my retelling of the African tales. I always close my programs with the Black American spirituals. These are the religious songs of the enslaved African people in the United States. Varied Western influences merged with their profound African musical heritage to give us these songs.  |
