COMING HOME

Langston Hughes's father lived in Mexico, finding it difficult to get work as an attorney in America because he was black, and Hughes's actress mother was often absent. The future author spent his early childhood with his grandmother in Lawrence, Kans. She was poor, often serving him dandelion greens, and she didn't like Langston playing with the neighborhood kids. So he watched for trains, the old rusty cars of which were ``talking, talking,'' and dreamed about riding on one in search of a home. He began to find a home in a variety of different places, including ``a blues song sung in the pale evening night on a Kansas City street corner.'' Newcomer Cooper's rich illustrations with a wealth of day-to-day details enhance the story—at the end of which Langston, now a world-renowned author, discovers that he ``never had a home like most people. Home was in him.'' A book of generous, but muted, feeling, animated by a central question: What is home? (Author's note; bibliography) (Nonfiction/Picture book. 4-10)