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Summary
Summary
Moods change from day to day, and you never know what tomorrow will bring. But one thing's for sure: when you've got love around you, the blues won't stick around long.
Author Notes
JERON ASHFORD FRAME was listening to a blues song on her car radio when she came up with the idea to write Yesterday I Had the Blues. When she's not writing, Jeron works at an academic library and spends time with her three daughters and her cat, Boomer. She lives near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
R. GREGORY CHRISTIE is a three-time recipient of the Coretta Scott King Honor Award. He has illustrated over twenty picturebooks and contributes regularly to the New Yorker and other magazines. Gregory works out of his studio in Brooklyn, New York. Visit www.gas-art.com.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this upbeat tale, moods may color the way people look at the world, but family togetherness trumps all. Debut author Frame and the consistently masterful Christie (Only Passing Through) riff on the range of human emotions with the agility of longtime collaborators, and the result is a book that truly sings. "Yesterday I had the blues," begins the African-American boy narrator. "Those deep down in my shoes blues,the go away, Mr. Sun, quit smilin' at me blues." But today is definitely looking up. "I got the greens. The runnin' my hand along the hedges greens. ... The kind of greens make you want to be Somebody." Jaunty, irregular typography acts as tempo and dynamic markings, underscoring the musicality of Frame's text. The boy then muses on the states of mind of everyone in his family, a subject well suited to Christie's visual finesse. The artist's off-kilter perspectives and playfully skewed proportions reinforce the intensity and fluidity of mood swings, while the array of saturated, textured hues infuse each spread with emotional depth. Christie attributes Daddy's case of "the grays" to a parking ticket, older sister Tania performs her "indigo" funk to the hilt. Other moods will be all too recognizable to readers (when Mama spots her younger children bouncing on the bed, she gets the reds"Look out!"). It's clear that in this family, even when moods are mercurial, love enduresand that, says the boy, makes life "all golden." Ages 4-8. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Primary) Feelings and family are the twin themes of this picture book, with a boy around age eight or nine doing the talking. He recalls the previous day, when he felt blue, ""those deep down in my shoes blues, the go away, Mr. Sun, quit smilin' at me blues."" Today, though, he has the greens, ""the kind of greens make you want to be Somebody."" He tells about the rest of his family, including his father (who has the grays and is shown with a parking ticket), his younger sister (pinks), his cool older sister (who has the indigos, not the blues), and Mama with the reds (""Look out!""). Acrylic and gouache paintings show the lanky African-American boy, his family, and their respective emotional colors in a loose style in keeping with the jazzy beat of the story. The pictures give a sense of the boy's daily life, and his face is expressive as he observes different family members in their various moods. The book will be useful for helping children sort out their own feelings and those of the people around them, but it also serves simply as a warm family story that ""makes you feel like it's all golden."" (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
K-Gr. 2. The young African American narrator of this picture book spends a gloomy day with the blues; on the other hand, his energetic, ballet-crazy sister has a case of the pinks. Frame explores the spectrum of feelings, represented by different colors, that a sensitive little boy observes in himself and in others who live in his urban neighborhood. Cues in the artwork that can help children understand the emotions may occasionally be lost in Christie's sometimes dizzyingly askew compositions, but the vibrant palette and expressive characters perfectly reinforce the premise. Frame's soulful text describes each emotion with a flair for the telling detail (the father has got the grays. . . . / The don't ask for a new skateboard till tomorrow grays ). At times, the author's free-associating can be a bit puzzling (the straight shoelaces, coffee in the car grays ), but representing emotions with colors is an excellent way to introduce kids to metaphor. This will be a versatile tool for creative-writing units, too. --Jennifer Mattson Copyright 2003 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 1-4-From his own "blues" to Gram's cheery "yellows" to Mama's "reds" ("Look out!"), a young boy describes the ever-changing moods of the people he loves, divulging that no matter what, his family always makes him feel "like it's all golden." Dynamic paintings in vivid hues reflect each emotional nuance. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A young African-American boy uses the blues as a springboard to explore both his emotions and those of his family in this perfectly agreeable picture book. Using bluesy rhythms, newcomer Frame employs concrete language to create fresh, immediate images: "[I had the] hold a pillow, / wish it was tomorrow blues. / The kind of blues / make you wanna just / turn / down / the / volume." Christie's raw, expressive acrylic-and-gouache paintings place almost childishly rendered figures against deeply saturated full-bleed backgrounds, amplifying every emotional erg of the text. Modulating from yesterday's blues to today's greens, his father's grays, mother's reds, and sisters' pinks and indigos, the boy concludes that he's got "the kind of family makes you feel / like it's / all / golden." While extending the color metaphor nicely, this cheery conclusion does not do enough to incorporate the more negative grays and reds of his parents--nevertheless, the mood/color equation is one familiar to children--and this interpretation will strike a chord with its audience. (Picture book. 5-8) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
