Langston Hughes Literature

Best of Simple, The
Illus. by Bernard Nast

Author: Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967

A selection of the author's favorite stories chosen from three of his books: "Simple Speaks his Mind," "Simple Takes a Wife," and "Simple Stakes a Claim."

ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0374521336 : Paperback
0404199364 : Hardcover

Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Baker & Taylor
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 035331

Block, The: poems
by Langston Hughes ; collage by Romare Bearden ; selected by Lowery S. Sims and Daisy Murray Voigt ; introduction by Bill Cosby

Author: Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967

A collection of thirteen of Langston Hughes poems on African American themes.

New York: Viking, 1995, 32 p.

Kirkus Reviews In a work published in conjunction with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the words and images of two Harlem Renaissance artists combine in a jazzy portrait of life on a Harlem block. The juxtaposition of poems--dating from the 1920s through the 1950s--with portions of "The Block"--a collage Bearden created in 1971--give both works new spark; in fact, the two seem made for each other. The poems act as small spyglasses, enhancing details of the larger collage or giving new meaning to the visual image; Hughes (The Book of Rhythms, p. 1111, etc.) narrates events--a funeral, a love song, a lonely man's lament--that comprise the larger saga of the neighborhood. Cropped closeups of portions of Bearden's art individualize characters, drawing the eyes of young readers in. An introduction by Bill Cosby emphasizes the importance of neighborhood blocks as reflected in each artist's work. Though biographical pieces in the book acknowledge Hughes's acquaintance with Bearden in the 1930s, little is said of their influence on each other. Like Ntozake Shange's i live in music (1994, not reviewed), a continuous poem, illustrated by many of Bearden's works, this also shows readers how poetry and collage are not only related, but probably siblings.
(Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 1995)

Other related features:

1. Teaching with Fiction - More Than Meets the Eye: Increasing Children's Visual Literacy Skills Through Illustrated Books

Author Web Sites:
1. Langston Hughes : Features Hughes' bibliography.

Other Contributors:
Bearden, Romare, 1911-1988: illustrator

ISBNs Associated with this Title:
067086501X

Credits:
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Baker & Taylor
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20060820
• TID: 146080

Book of rhythms, The
Langston Hughes ; illustrations by Matt Wawiorka ; introduction by Wynton Marsalis ; afterword by Robert G. O'Meally

Author: Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967

Introduces the concept of rhythm, and looks at rhythms in nature, music, and everyday life

New York: Oxford University Press, c1995, viii, 55 p.

Notes:
Originally published: The first book of rhythms. New York : F. Watts, 1954

Reviews for this Title:
Kirkus Reviews /* Starred Review */ Starting with zigzag lines on paper, Hughes's book proceeds through musical notes, the ebb and flow of water, a man batting a ball, and a child spinning a top to show how all the world is connected by rhythm. People can control the way they paint, sing, or move, but they can't control the rhythms of their heartbeat any more than they can help being connected by those rhythms to all the other rhythms of the earth, the stars, and the universe. This message has implication within implications, and that it would be an exciting idea for discussion in the classroom is no accident (Hughes developed the approach while teaching at a Chicago Laboratory School). The new blue-gray and orange illustrations are perfectly in keeping with the period in which the book was first published (as The First Book of Rhythms, 1954); the introduction by Wynton Marsalis gives present-day star value and may lure readers who, ordinarily, wouldn't open a work of nonfiction, or any book at all. For Hughes's teenage fans and adults, what really snaps the book into a different focus is the historical overview of his work, particularly this one, presented by Robert G. O'Meally in the afterword. In a time in which society often looks back nostalgically to the post--WW II America, it's good to be reminded that not even children's books were immune to the repressive influence of the McCarthy years. Thought-provoking.
(Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 1995)

Other related features:

1. Awards (Best Fiction) - Children's -> Best Fiction -> Literary -> Parents' Choice Award -> Picture Books category -> 1998 -> Silver Awards

2. Awards (Best Fiction) - Easy -> Best Fiction -> Literary -> Parents' Choice Award -> Picture Books category -> 1998 -> Silver Awards

Author Web Sites:
1. Langston Hughes : Features Hughes' bibliography.

Other Contributors:
Wawiorka, Matthew: illustrator; Marsalis, Wynton, 1961-; O'Meally, Robert G., 1948-

Other titles associated with this book:
First book of rhythms

ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0195098560
019514306X : Paperback - Juvenile

Credits:
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Baker & Taylor
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20041020
• TID: 129019

Langston Hughes
edited by Arnold Rampersad & David Roessel ; illustrations by Benny Andrews

Author: Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967

Offers an introduction to the world of Langston Hughes, one of the central figures in the Harlem Renaissance, and presents a selection of his poems that reflect African American culture and experience.

New York: Sterling Pub., c2006, 48 p.

Kirkus Reviews "So long, / so far away / is Africa. / Not even memories alive / Save those that history books create, / Save those that songs / Beat back into the blood." Selected and annotated by two authorities on the poet, these 26 short poems capture both the innovative rhythms and pervasive themes in the work of the most widely read African-American poet of his day?if not ever. Andrews's art captures its tone just as perfectly; his angular, dark-skinned figures look down reflectively even when dancing, and seem solitary even when placed among crowds. Readers will come away with a clear sense of Hughes's influences ("I too sing America" is a direct response to a Walt Whitman lyric) and distinct voice?as well as a powerful urge to look up the three-times-longer collection Dream Keeper (1994 edition illustrated by Brian Pinkney). (introduction, index, glossaries for each poem) (Poetry. 9+)
(Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2006)

Author Web Sites:
1. Langston Hughes : Features Hughes' bibliography.

Other Contributors:
Rampersad, Arnold: editor; Roessel, David E. (David Ernest), 1954-: editor; Andrews, Benny, 1930-: ill

Other titles associated with this book:
Poems
Poetry for young people: Langston Hughes

ISBNs Associated with this Title:
1402718454
0553714910 : CD - Audio

Credits:
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Baker & Taylor
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20060720
• TID: 145599

Not without laughter
With a new introduction by Maya Angelou. Foreword by Arna Bontemps

Author: Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967

Depicts a Black family's attempts to deal with life in a small Kansas town

Library Journal Review: This is another in the new Scribner Paperback Fiction line. Poet Hughes made the jump to fiction with this 1930 first novel of an African American boy's coming of age in a small Kansas town.

Author Web Sites:
1. Langston Hughes : Features Hughes' bibliography.

Other Contributors:
Angelou, Maya; Bontemps, Arna, 1902-1973

Other titles associated with this book:
Without laughter

ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0020209851
0848810554 : Hardcover
0606162593 : DEMCO Turtleback
078575783X : Glued Binding
0862417686 : Paperback
0394438736 : Hardcover

Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Baker & Taylor
• MetaMetrics, Inc.
• Library Journal, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 035332

Return of Simple, The
Edited by Akiba Sullivan Harper. Introduction by Arnold Rampersad

Author: Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967

A new collection of "Simple" stories, more than half of which have never before been gathered into book form, chronicles the life and struggles of Jesse B. Semple and are considered by many to represent Langston Hughes's best work

New York: Hill and Wang, 1994, 218 p.

Contents:
PARTIAL CONTENTS: Women in Simple's life. -- Race, riots, police, prices, and politics. -- Africa and Black pride. -- Parting lines.

Reviews for this Title:
Publishers Weekly Review: Hughes (1902-1967), whose work accelerated the recognition of African American literature, is remembered mostly for his poetry. But Hughes also touched the minds of millions through the brief narrations of the fictional Jesse B. Semple, or "Simple," which first appeared in 1943 in his column in the Chicago Defender and, later, in the New York Post. Here, edited by a teacher at Spelman College, is an enlightening collection of these social commentaries. Half of the selections have never appeared in book form; the others are drawn from five previous Simple collections, all out of print. Harper groups her choices into four sections: "Women in Simple's Life"; "Race, Riots, Police, Prices, and Politics"; "Africa and Black Pride"; and "Parting Lines." Topics range from criticism of superficial beauty ("Wigs, Women and Falsies") to animal rights ("Money and Mice") and the equation of the word "black" with "evil" in American slang ("That Word Black"). Throughout, the persistence of some issues from the 1940s through the present is striking and infuriating. In "Population Explosion," for example, written in 1965, Simple criticizes the racist underpinnings of birth-control and sterilization proposals, while in "Liberals Need a Mascot," from 1949, he takes an insightful jab at the hypocritical politically correct. Also discussing Pan Africanism, children's rights, socioeconomic imbalances and African American animosity toward the police, Hughes, through the sometimes hyperbolic but always critical commentary of Jesse B. Semple, challenges the widespread notion of the unsophisticated "common man." Welcome back, Simple. (July)

Library Journal Review: All five books featuring Jesse B. Semple (``Simple''), the character Hughes created for his weekly Chicago Defender column, are out of print. Half the stories here are drawn from those books; the remainder have never before appeared in book form.

Kirkus Reviews A welcome reintroduction to the pioneering African-American writer's most memorable fictional character. Already a popular poet, playwright, novelist, and key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes (1902-67) introduced Jesse B. Semple ("Simple") to readers in 1942 in his Chicago Defender column, "From Here to Yonder," as a way to convince black Americans to support the US war effort. From his familiar perch in a fictional Harlem bar, Simple held forth on a variety of subjects in his own inimitable, folksy way, and over the next 23 years his musings were collected in five volumes. The Return of Simple brings together mostly uncollected columns as well as a few favorites from previous collections. Simple's sometimes tall tales of growing up in the South and migrating to Harlem are timeless. Race riots, low wages, interracial marriages, adopting an African name, and birth control are some of the subjects on which he expounds to his erudite, educated fellow barfly, who always acts the straight man. Then there is Simple's favorite subject -- "womens," including bis wild cousin Minnie ("The Lord, I reckon, gave her them bail-bearing hips, but the Devil must of taught her how to use them"); Zarita, who is always "drinking him up"; and his second wife, Joyce ("Eve in the garden could not be no better, because Eve had no stove on which to cook"). Simple speaks with a poetic and easy logic ("It is better to be wore out from living than to be worn out from worry") in a voice that comes straight out of the African-American folk tradition, but Hughes's slices of urban black life belong also to the larger continuum of great American humor, from Mark Twain to Armistead Maupin. Quite simply, an indispensable part of our cultural heritage.
(Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 1994)

Other related features:

1. Annotated Book List - The Roots of Modern African American Fiction

Author Web Sites:
1. Langston Hughes : Features Hughes' bibliography.

Other Contributors:
Harper, Akiba Sullivan: editor

ISBNs Associated with this Title:
080908676X
080901582X : Paperback - Print on Demand

Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Baker & Taylor
• Publishers Weekly, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Library Journal, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 003569

Short stories
Edited by Akiba Sullivan Harper. With an introduction by Arnold Rampersad

Author: Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967

Offers a collection of stories written between 1919 and 1963 that follow Hughes' literary development and the growth of his personal and political concerns

Kirkus Reviews Eight of the forty-seven stories in this welcome volume of Hughes's short fiction have never before been collected, and the rest are from long out-of-print books. The chronological arrangement (the pieces were written between 1919 and 1963) gives us a full appreciation of Hughes's evolution as a man of letters. Three high-school tales not previously collected demonstrate Hughes'syouthful social conscience and his early, solid command of his craft. His early protagonists struggle against poverty, leading lives of quiet sorrow. A series of sea stories reflects his own experience as a sailor, all involving trips to the West Coast of Africa, where, variously, sailors fight over a beautiful native girl, a naive missionary girl commits suicide after a sailor compromises her virtue, and a romantic European is entranced by his African wife. A number of pieces from the '30s concern the black artist's ambivalent relation to his white patrons: In "The Blues I'm Playing," a brilliant pianist defies her condescending sponsor to marry a young doctor; and the bohemians in "Slave on the Rock" degrade their black servants while romanticizing the black race. Throughout the Depression, Hughes documented the struggle of blacks simply to survive. In one story, a homeless man hallucinates about breakinginto a church and finding Christ himself inside. Hughes's Communist sympathies also surface in a few pieces, as in a tale of racism and red-baiting at the WPA, or the superb record of a failed strike by black actors in "Trouble with the Angels." But many of the stories simply chronicle the vibrancy of Harlem life, the passions of ordinary black people, and the indignities of everyday racism. "On Friday Morning" is the heartbreaking tale of an aspiring artist denied her art school scholarship because of her race. Stories that, at their best, provide a remarkable portrait of black America over several crucial decades: an important collection that can only enhance our admiration of a great American writer.
(Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 1996)

Author Web Sites:
1. Langston Hughes : Features Hughes' bibliography.

Other Contributors:
Harper, Akiba Sullivan: editor; Rampersad, Arnold

Other titles associated with this book:
Langston Hughes short stories
Short stories of Langston Hughes

ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0809086581
0809016036 : Paperback
0613025040 : Glued Binding
0809035413 : Hardcover

Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Baker & Taylor
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 035333

Simple's Uncle Sam

Author: Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967

Jesse B. Simple's observations and experiences reflect the ironies of life in Harlem

Hill and Wang, 1965, 180p.

Kirkus Reviews The main voice in these interludes, 43 newspaper and magazine pieces best described as story-anecdotes, is Jesse B. Semple, or Simple, whom Hughes has developed over the years as a "reflector" of the moods, spirit, whimsies and hopes of the tenants of the Negro ghetto. The subjects include the civil rights scene, national and local politics, even air raid shelters and marriage as an institution. Simple is the Average Man Militant. His fanciful disquisitions often lead to serious revelations--such as his dream in which Negroes rule the South and "Mammy" Eastland come begging for a handout. Harlem is a place, and one gets the feeling of it through several characters; but Harlem is also an idea and Hughes makes it more comprehensible to anyone befuddled by its complexities. As for Jesse B., he proves by his commentary on the de facto racist institutions which most white people take for granted as unbiased that he is as simple as a Jesuit.
(Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 1965)

Other related features:

1. Annotated Book List - The Roots of Modern African American Fiction

Author Web Sites:
1. Langston Hughes : Features Hughes' bibliography.

ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0809086816 : Paperback
0809000873 : Paperback

Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Baker & Taylor
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 035334

Sweet and sour animal book, The
Langston Hughes ; illustrations by students from the Harlem School of the Arts ; introduction by Ben Vereen ; afterword by George P. Cunningham

Author: Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967

Twenty-six short poems introduce animals for each letter of the alphabet, from Ape to Zebra.

New York: Oxford University Press, c1994, 48 p.

Kirkus Reviews Published for the first time, this book of poems for children covers animals for all the letters of the alphabet (except for X, which gets a poem but no animal). Some of the poems are educational, some are just fun: "What use/Is a goose/Except to quackle?/If a goose/Can't quackle/She's out of whackle." Many of them offer moral lessons: "A lion in a zoo,/Shut up in a cage,/Lives a life/Of smothered rage." Hughes (1902--67) really speaks to today's children, and who better to illustrate his poems than the children of the Harlem School of the Arts? Their sculptures perfectly complement the whimsical tone of Hughes's poetry. Although it's hard to tell what kind of artists these children will be when they grow up, right now they are marvelous. An autobiographical introduction by entertainer Ben Vereen and a biographical afterword about Hughes by George P. Cunningham (Africana studies/Brooklyn College) round out the volume. Harlem Renaissance poet Hughes and young Harlem artists together create a fun, provocative, and visually exciting abecedary.
(Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 1994)

Author Web Sites:
1. Langston Hughes : Features Hughes' bibliography.

Other Contributors:
Vereen, Ben; Cunningham, George Philbert, 1937-

ISBNs Associated with this Title:
019509185X
0195120302 : Paperback - Juvenile
0613062779 : Prebind
0606291644 : DEMCO Turtleback - Juvenile

Credits:
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Baker & Taylor
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20041020
• TID: 129024

Tambourines to glory

Author: Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967

Determined to escape the poverty of public assistance, Essie Belle Johnson and Laura Reed, neighbors living in adjoining tenement apartments, are inspired to start a church in the heart of 1950s Harlem, using Laura's talents for the limelight and Essie's charismatic singing to establish the Tambourine Temple. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.

Kirkus Reviews A Harlem folk tale in modern guise- so one might characterize this story of two sides of the coin in an independent, non-denominational religious racket. Two women on relief -- one a lusty realist, took her sex where she could get it, used what funds she had to "buy" her man (preferably young and good looking), and came up with the idea of putting on an act on a street corner using religion in free wheeling style; the other whose chief characteristic was sheer indolence, liked to sit better than to stand, but was at heart, sincere, well-meaning and honest. A tambourine to accompany the singing -- and collect the sheckels; a gift of gab and high sounding phrases in the best Billy Sunday tradition, a soulful voice and a soulful appearance, these were their stock in trade. But when Laura took on a youngman with ideas, she progressed from street corner to a two room Garden of Eden, then to refurbished ex theatre, while the crowds grew and the money flowed. Laura doled it out to her Charlie; Essie put it into good works- and to her preparations for her teen-age daughter to come North. And a few people got religion. That it ends on a note of melodrama bordering on tragedy somehow fails to touch the heartstrings. But the telling in the vernacular has its poetic overtones and its sense of authenticity.
(Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 1958)

Author Web Sites:
1. Langston Hughes : Features Hughes' bibliography.

ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0767923278 : Paperback
0809091348 : Hardcover

Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Baker & Taylor
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 035335

Ways of white folks, The

Author: Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967

Fourteen stories deal with the interaction of Blacks and whites in 1930s America, including the stories of an ailing musician, a moonlighting student, and a clever charlatan

ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0679728171
083359057X : Glued Binding
0394451163 : Hardcover

Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Baker & Taylor
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 035336