Becoming Billie Holiday by Carole Boston Weatherford. Illustrated by Floyd Cooper. 116 p. Wording/ Boyd's Mills Press, October, 2008. 9781590785072. (Own)
This fictionalized biography in verse covers Billie Holiday's life from her birth, through her troubled childhood to age 25, when she cemented her stature as a premier interpreter and singer of jazz. Holiday's life was not easy. Weatherford does not sugarcoat it, but stops the novel at a high point in the singer's life. The accompanying illustrations are beautiful, sepia toned and compelling. Readers will want to pause to savor the portraits as well as the words. Cooper's subtractive art is a marvel.
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