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From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)

Mr. Pierce’s barbershop is the place to be according to the young Black narrator of this joyful picture book. “Razors and roaring laughter. Scissors and stories. Tonics and tunes on the radio.” But the shop is more than a barbershop. It’s also an art gallery, full of the wood carvings that Mr. Pierce has created. Mr. Pierce tells the boy that he started carving when he was a boy himself. “I could see a picture that I liked, or a person would tell me a story … and I’d get me a piece of wood and start to carve it. … Everything I carve, I want it to tell some kind of story.” This inventive, inspired introduction to Black folk artist Elijah Pierce imagines an encounter between Pierce and a fictional Black child in the late 1970s. But Pierce’s barbershop gallery in Columbus, Ohio, and the astonishing body of work he created are real, as are the quotes from Pierce throughout the story. Pierce’s work ranged from animals to Bible stories to portraits to personal history. Photographs of 11 of his pieces are included in the end matter, along with an informative author’s note, a timeline, and illustrator’s note. The illustrator used the mokuhanga printmaking process along with collage to make striking images perfectly suited to a book about a folk artist. (Ages 7-11)

CCBC Choices 2024 © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2024. Used with permission.

From Horn Book

March 1, 2023
Elijah Pierce was a Black Mississippi folk artist born in 1892 in a log cabin. In this imagined encounter, a young Black boy gets his hair cut at Pierce's barbershop and is treated to a tour of the barbershop's art gallery, featuring Pierce's wood carvings. "Sculptures and walking sticks. Models and message signs...Everyday people. And famous people. Everything I carve, I want it to tell some kind of story." Mack-Watkins uses printmaking techniques and mixed-media collage to create colorful, textured art representing Pierce's folk art. The brief narrative works on several levels. It showcases the artist and his work and how he was instrumental in the growing recognition of folk art in the American art scene. We also see how Pierce's art inspires a young boy's burgeoning interest in making art of his own. The story would pair well with Tate and Christie's It Jes' Happened: When Bill Traylor Started to Draw (rev. 5/12). Back matter includes an authors' note, images of Pierce's art, an artist's note, a timeline, and a list of museums where Pierce's work is shown. Dean Schneider

(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

From School Library Journal

February 1, 2023

Gr 1-4-Elijah Pierce was an African American folk artist whose work was discovered by the art world late in life. His wood carvings, voice, and representation within the African American community are valuable. In this book, a Black child and his father step into Pierce's Barbershop, the community hotspot, for haircuts, and the child talks to Pierce about art. The riveting, bold color illustrations place Pierce's story in the moment, although his suit and barbershop interior locks this period piece into the 1970s. Japanese wood blocks and Pierce's original art are seamlessly interwoven in this mixed-media piece, a thoughtful homage to an artist whose medium was wood. Clever and beautiful, it pairs brilliantly with the text and Pierce's life as a barber. Sharp onomatopoeia scats across between the child's fresh cut and the sculpting of wood, as Pierce shows his gallery after cutting hair. His hands form art, the barbershop is his gallery, and all of this is the community he's created through his goodwill. Back matter includes author and illustrator notes, information about Pierce's art and exhibits, and further resources. VERDICT A quality selection for informational books about artists and BIPOC individuals, this is likely to spark some real love in conversations surrounding the role of folk art, community outposts such as neighborhood barbershops, and more.-Rachel Zuffa

Copyright 2023 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

From Booklist

Starred review from January 1, 2023
Grades K-3 *Starred Review* For fans of Don Tate's It Jes' Happened (2012) and Alison Goldberg's Bottle Tops (2022) comes a presentation of another influential Black outsider artist, Elijah Pierce. Unlike a traditional biography, this picture book introduces biographical elements through an imagined encounter between a fictional Black boy and Mr. Pierce at a barbershop (Pierce was a notable barber before his recognition as an artist). As the boy--himself a budding artist--gets a trim, Mr. Pierce recounts his path as a wood carver. After receiving a pocketknife from his formerly enslaved father and learning to carve from his uncle, Mr. Pierce never stopped shaping wood. While pointing out specific wood carvings around the shop, he tells the stories behind them. Colorful illustrations, at times reminiscent of woodcuts, incorporate photographic images of the folk artist's real carvings. Interspersed action words (e.g., "COMB / SNIP" and "CHIP / GOUGE") also accentuate Pierce's artistic process. Extensive back matter includes a description of the Corcoran Gallery's groundbreaking Black folk art exhibit, which finally recognized Pierce in the art community; an author's note with more details on Pierce's life and a clear explanation of which parts of the book are fictionalized; and a thumbnail gallery of works featured in the book. Thoughtful and enlightening.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

From Horn Book

January 1, 2023
Elijah Pierce was a Black Mississippi folk artist born in 1892 in a log cabin. In this imagined encounter, a young Black boy gets his hair cut at Pierce's barbershop and is treated to a tour of the barbershop's art gallery, featuring Pierce's wood carvings. "Sculptures and walking sticks. Models and message signs...Everyday people. And famous people. Everything I carve, I want it to tell some kind of story." Mack-Watkins uses printmaking techniques and mixed-media collage to create colorful, textured art representing Pierce's folk art. The brief narrative works on several levels. It showcases the artist and his work and how he was instrumental in the growing recognition of folk art in the American art scene. We also see how Pierce's art inspires a young boy's burgeoning interest in making art of his own. The story would pair well with Tate and Christie's It Jes' Happened: When Bill Traylor Started to Draw (rev. 5/12). Back matter includes an authors' note, images of Pierce's art, an artist's note, a timeline, and a list of museums where Pierce's work is shown.

(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

From Publisher's Weekly

December 19, 2022
In a fictionalized story centering wood carver and folk artist Elijah Pierce (1892–1984), a narrating child and their father head into Pierce’s barbershop. “You gotta meet Mr. Pierce,” Dad says as they enter the shop, where “Wood carvings. They’re everywhere! And laughter. Razors and roaring laughter. Scissors and stories. Tonics and tunes on the radio.” As the child receives a haircut and connects with Pierce over an uncertainty about what to draw, Mullins Lee and Van Vleet use the duo’s conversation to relay Pierce’s early experiences carving “anything I could think of” after receiving a pocketknife as a boy. Next, Pierce shows father and child his carvings—animal figures, personal scenes that reveal biographical details, and the only wooden Bible storybook of its kind—before giving the child a carved elephant figurine, and some inspiration. Action words (“DRAPE /SNAP,” “SAND/DUST”) evoke movement and expertise throughout, while Mack-Watkins’s use of woodcut textures brings the subject’s medium to the fore. Back matter includes creators’ notes and further material. Ages 4–8.

From Kirkus

November 1, 2022
A blocked young artist finds inspiration in the wood carvings and reminiscences of a local barber. The authors introduce readers to Elijah Pierce, a self-taught Black Columbus, Ohio, artist whose distinctive painted carvings--which range from free-standing animals to low-relief portraits and Bible scenes--are sampled both in a closing gallery and incorporated into Mack-Watkins' woodcut illustrations. In a casual but meaningful conversation with a fictive young Black customer, Mr. Pierce personably recalls how the childhood gift of a pocketknife led to a lifetime of turning stories into art, recording memorable incidents, and seeing possibilities for new works everywhere: "The more you look, the more you see." Mr. Pierce is right, the budding artist realizes, looking over the arrays of figures and framed bas-reliefs crowding the shop's walls and coming away with both a newly carved gift from the artist and fresh ideas for a future art project. Pierce eluded notice (outside his local community, anyway) until shortly before his death in 1984, but his work hangs in museums now, and, along with further biographical details, an afterword lists exhibits and honors. (This book was reviewed digitally.) An intimate encounter with an artist who should be better known. (illustrator's note) (Informational picture book. 7-9)

COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.