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In Times Past
an eBook on CD
by Carol Hurst and Rebecca Otis

Integrating US History with Literature in Grades 3-8.

Enliven your US History curriculum!

Teach US History using great kids books.

More Info

Creation

by James Weldon Johnson, illustrated by Carla Golembe. (Little, 1993 ISBN 0316467448. Order Online.) Picture Book. Grade 3+.
This review by Carol Otis Hurst first appeared in Teaching K-8 Magazine.

Review

Here's new illustrations and an old poem, both of which are beautifully combined. I remember doing the poem as part of a choral performance in college and it stirred me then as it does now -- the wonderful retelling of the Biblical story by the great Black poet. The images: the darkness was "Blacker than a hundred midnights down in a cypress swamp"; God clapped his hands "And the waters above the earth came down, the cooling waters came down". Johnson's God is a humanized one and therefore an understandable one. The illustrations like the poem are simple and childlike with bold colors and clear images. This is a book for a family to share.