Myers, Walter Dean. 1997. HARLEM. Pictures by Christopher Myers. New York: Scholastic Press. ISBN 0-590-54340-7

Walter Dean Myers was born in West Virginia during the Great Depression, 1937, but was soon sent to Harlem where he lived until he dropped out of high school to join the army. Fortunately, he had a teacher who encouraged him to keep writing, and he did. He was written novels, picture books and biographies as well as books of poetry. HARLEM, like many of his books is written primarily for young adults. It reflects both the discrimination he faced as well as the excitement of living in an area that was and is a cultural center for African Americans.

The book may be read as one long poem that describes the sights, sounds and emotions of Harlem. It begins with a poem that tells how people migrated to Harlem:

They took to the road in Waycross, Georgia
Skipped over the track in East St. Louis
Took the bus from Holly Springs
Hitched a ride from Gee’s Bend

From this beginning the reader has a feel for the entire poem. It is done in free verse, and it tells a story, but it also has a definite rhythm. It might be put to music—perhaps a folk song, or perhaps the blues. It is also possible to read a single page as a complete poem. Each page creates a total image of one scene. For example, Myers describes children playing street games in front of their apartments:

A carnival of children
People the daytime streets
Ring-a-levio warriors
Stickball heroes
Hide-and-seek knights and ladies
Waiting to sing their own sweet songs
Living out their own slam-dunk dreams

Most of the poems include the sounds and music of the area, starting with the origin of the music:

They brought a call, a song
First heard in the villages of Ghana/Mali/Senegal
Calls and song and shouts
Heavy hearted tambourine rhythms

Myers also writes with lilt and tempo about the lilt and tempo of the jazzy at the Cotton Club, the Apollo and the Abyssinian Baptist Church. He evokes the song of informal gospel songs and of instruments playing through funerals. The poetry catches both the excitement and the despair of the people living in Harlem and gives the reader both feelings at the same time.

Myers collaborated with his son, Christopher Myers who created the multimedia illustrations that help bring the area and its population to life. Christopher Myers uses ink, gouache and collage to produce brilliantly colored and many-layered illustrations. The portraits are neither realistic nor abstract, but somewhere in between. This creates the impression that each person in the book represents many people. Similarly, while the book is undoubtedly set in one section of New York City, the illustrations might be any inner city area. The illustrations vary in size from double page to full page to smaller squares as the artist backs away from his subject or moves in closer. They add immeasurably to the poems.

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