Walk Together Children

Years ago, while a voice student at San Francisco State University, I fell in love with spirituals and included at least two in all of my required recitals. And, whenever my wallet would allow, I’d trek off to one of several used bookstores and spend hours flipping through old groupings of dusty sheet music in pursuit of unearthing a used collection of operatic arias for baritone with the hope of unearthing a collection of spirituals too. On one such expedition I stumbled upon a first edition paperback copy of “Walk Together Children”. I paid the full price of $2.95 cents.

As I turned the pages, I was struck by the illustrations more so that the opening notes and music of each song highlighted. In my view this is a book less about the song and much more about the artwork’s definitive alignment with the lyrics and historical context of each song created by unknown bards. The review below is not an informed one, though worth posting for the sack of shall we say, “discussion”. Walk Together Children is not a songbook, but rather an art book that give illustrated life to a handful of a number of familiar tunes. Equally, impressive is the book’s citation linking it to world music which I just noticed for the first time.

Stark sobriety of mood and fluid overall design meet in Ashley Bryan’s black and white prints which feature African people and motifs, often mixed with biblical subjects…the handsome illustrations and hand-blocked notes…different from the artwork in their deceptive simplicity and their use of religious themes to express a longing for freedom (a message which Ashley’s use of blacks in the biblical scenes makes explicit). The absence of accompanying arrangements is not important at this level; however even young children will want more than the single verse provided in most instances. In all, this is not quite the ideal format for a “first book of spirituals,” but Bryan’s illustrations have an emotional toughness not usually found in work for children — one which refutes, albeit not very subtly, the misconceived notion that spirituals are either submissive or sentimental.
–review by Kirkusreviews.com