New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Jason
Reynolds's debut picture book is a snappy, joyous ode to Word King,
literary genius, and glass-ceiling smasher Langston Hughes and the
luminaries he inspired.
Back in the day,
there was a heckuva party, a jam, for a word-making man. The King of
Letters. Langston Hughes. His ABCs became drums, bumping jumping
thumping like a heart the size of the whole country. They sent some
people yelling and others, his word-children, to write their own
glory.
Maya Angelou, Amiri
Baraka, and more came be-bopping to recite poems at their hero's feet
at that heckuva party at the Schomberg Library, dancing boom da boom,
stepping and stomping, all in praise and love for Langston,
world-mending word man. Oh, yeah, there was hoopla in Harlem, for its
Renaissance man. A party for Langston.