TOMMY TRAVELER IN THE WORLD OF BLACK HISTORY
by Tom Feelings & illustrated by Tom Feelings
Feelings, a widely respected illustrator who received a Caldecott Honor for Moja Means One (1971), originally published these comic-strip vignettes in a local newspaper in 1958 and 1959. With minor textual changes and added color, the adventures of a black boy whose reading transports him to the past now appear again. Tommy has access to the extensive library of a neighbor whose collection includes periodicals and newspapers as well as books; in narratives that vary in length from one to many pages, he visits Phoebe Fraunces, Emmet Till, Aesop, Frederick Douglass, Crispus Attucks, and Joe Louis. A commendable amount of information is conveyed here. Working competently within the genre, Feelings demonstrates talent but little hint of the breadth and power of his subsequent work; still, Tommy succeeds in his original intention of introducing black history with pride, in an easily accessible format with popular appeal. (Nonfiction. 5+)