Sidewalk Chalk

Children’s Literature Legacy Award winning author Carole Boston Weatherford pays tribute to sights and sounds of urban life in twenty fresh and rhythmic poems.

At every corner, down every block, a city percolates with people at work and play: girls jumping double Dutch, the shoeshine man polishing a pair of wing tips, boys heading toward the basketball court. Each neighborhood is filled with unique characters (the beautician, the barber, the short-order cook) and places (the storefront churches, the outdoor market, the park pool) – all as familiar as family. In quiet moments and lively street scenes, Weatherford’s words and Dimitrea Tokunbo’s vivid illustrations captures the excitement and diversity found in these places that have “no trees / to climb” but where people young and old still “reach for the stars.”