Book Description
for Leontyne Price by Carole Boston Weatherford and Raúl Colón
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
From the time she was a child in Mississippi, Leontyne had always loved listening to the Metropolitan Opera’s Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts, but she knew there weren’t any Black opera singers. Then she heard about Marian Anderson, who became a lifelong inspiration to her. Anderson opened many doors and left them ajar for Leontyne to later blast through and leave wide open. After studying music at an Ohio college, Leontyne enrolled in Julliard, and from there went to Broadway before finally finding the career she had dreamed of—opera. Weatherford’s poetic text gives a strong sense of the barriers Leontyne Price faced and broke through, and Colón’s dreamlike illustrations underscore the aspirations of a gifted young singer following her heart to achieve her goals. (Ages 4–8)
CCBC Choices 2016. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2016. Used with permission.