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Dream a Dress, Dream a Poem
Dressmaker and Poet, Myra Viola Wilds (A Picture Book)
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A poetic picture book biography about blind Black poet Myra Viola Wilds, written by the author of Brown: The Many Shades of Love
What dreams do you carry? Myra Viola Wilds dreamed of opportunity. She left her home in rural Kentucky for the city, learned to read and to write, and became a dressmaker. She hand-stitched gorgeous gowns. She worked so hard she lost her eyesight, and her world went dark. But those well-loved stitches turned into words, and one night Myra woke in the middle of the night and wrote a poem she called “Sunshine.” She kept writing. She wrote the lush green, sweet-corn yellow, cerulean blue, sunshine-y world from memory, collecting her poems into a book called Thoughts of Idle Hours, published in 1915.
Written in Wilds’s style, this lyrical, gorgeously illustrated picture book biography celebrates this little-known poet and includes a biography that provides context to her life—the Great Migration, Jim Crow segregation—as well a photograph and a small selection of her poems.
What dreams do you carry? Myra Viola Wilds dreamed of opportunity. She left her home in rural Kentucky for the city, learned to read and to write, and became a dressmaker. She hand-stitched gorgeous gowns. She worked so hard she lost her eyesight, and her world went dark. But those well-loved stitches turned into words, and one night Myra woke in the middle of the night and wrote a poem she called “Sunshine.” She kept writing. She wrote the lush green, sweet-corn yellow, cerulean blue, sunshine-y world from memory, collecting her poems into a book called Thoughts of Idle Hours, published in 1915.
Written in Wilds’s style, this lyrical, gorgeously illustrated picture book biography celebrates this little-known poet and includes a biography that provides context to her life—the Great Migration, Jim Crow segregation—as well a photograph and a small selection of her poems.
Extent: 32 pp
Format: Hardback
Illustrations: full-color illustrations throughout
Publication date: 2025-01-23
Size: 27.3 x 25.0 cm
ISBN: 9781951836535
Praise for Dream a Dress, Dream a Poem
***STARRED REVIEW*** "Mellifluous verse...stunning saturated colorblock illustrations"
Publishers Weekly
***STARRED REVIEW*** "[A] tender tapestry of a creative life...Beautifully crafted and compellingly celebratory."
Kirkus Reviews
***STARRED REVIEW*** "Wilds is an admirable, intriguing creator...Diana Ejaita’s fanciful artwork steals the show...Dream a Dress, Dream a Poem offers a world of inspiration for young creators of many kinds."
Book Page
James’ poetry is beautifully accompanied by Ejaita's richly textured and vibrant patchwork illustrations.
Booklist
About the Author
Nancy Johnson James is a poet and the author of Brown: The Many Shades of Love; Black: The Many Wonders of My World; and Blue: The Many Ways I Feel in The Colors of My Life series. Her family is from the same Kentucky town that Wilds was from. She lives in Maryland. Diana Ejaita is an illustrator and textile designer based in Berlin. Her work can be found in Let: A Poem About Wonder and Possibility, published by Cameron Kids, and in her starred-reviewed picture book, Olu and Greta.
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