Children’s Book by Langston Hughes Resurfaces After Decades

A youngsters’s e-book titled The Sweet and Sour Animal Book, written by Langston Hughes and illustrated by Elmer W. Brown, has resurfaced in Cleveland, OH and is being given a platform it by no means had.

Hughes and Brown met within the ’30s in Cleveland’s Karma House, the oldest Black theater within the United States. Once their friendship had developed, they sought to jot down a youngsters’s e-book that corrected the racist narrative a lot of kids’s literature of the day perpetuated. The Sweet and Sour Animal Book was born, with its vivid, colourful footage of animals and descriptive verses by Hughs.

In the ’80s, Brown’s widow donated the e-book to the Cleveland Artists Foundation, now ARTneo. Sabine Kretzschmar, ARTneo’s CEO, additionally directs the Cleveland Museum of Art’s highschool curation program, and this 12 months college students have been assigned with curating an exhibition for Brown’s and Hughes’ e-book. The exhibit brings the e-book’s whimsy and character to life, and has an accompanying studying room. It’s at the moment open on the ARTneo galleries in Cleveland, OH, and is operating via July 24. Click right here to study extra.

Find extra information and tales of curiosity from the e-book world in Breaking in Books.