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| HARPER, 2025 |
Inspired by a true story, LUCY SHINES ON LUCY STREET is written by Lawrence Roberts and Sally-Ann Roberts, with illustrations by Jestenia Southerland and an epilogue by Robin Roberts of GOOD MORNING AMERICA. With a team like this to support it, this new picture book doesn't really need my endorsement, but it has it!
I sometimes request picture books of interest from publishers, which I then read as digital files or as physical books when provided by the publisher. I never promise a review of any kind, but only request those that hold great promise. In this case, a package arrived at my door unrequested, and it is a title that had missed my radar (despite that remarkable support team I mentioned). I'm happy it did, since this story is both entertaining and inspiring.
The colorful but subtle art combine with the straightforward storytelling to take me back to a mid-twentieth century Akron, Ohio (1932, actually). It was a time and place in which kids ran through the neighborhood in happy packs, when the location allowed for integrated neighborhoods and wide acceptance of all. What it also provided was a sense of security and joy within the kid-crew despite the encroaching reality of the Great Depression.
Lucy looks up from a game to see that her home is being stripped of its time-payment furnishings, as other homes soon will be. Mother's reassurances that the family will be fine are received (by the characters and by readers) with less than full confidence. Lucy's grandparents live at the end of the block, another throwback image of stability in extended family life. There, Lucy finds comfort in grandpa Pastor George's hug, in the rhythm of the porch swing accompanying his familiar song: THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE...
"Singing is good medicine" is his advice, which extends to some foot-stomping fun that draws her neighbor friends to sing along. Reality, though, pulls Lucy back to reality when the song ends and the truck drives away with their furnishings inside.
What follows is a series of scenes that reveal the power of sustaining hope and adjusting to new realities, to Lucy's effort to support her saddened parents, to the power of hope that echoes to other families through her singing, and ultimately to a wider, resilient neighborhood. The epilogue depicts Lucy as a young woman who is sharing her singing with a church class of children, and who then gets good news that will lead her into an even more secure future.
There's much to recommend this seemingly simple story. It is a showcase of a specific time, place, and conditions. it retains a strong sense of family and strength despite the stark loss of the essentials of a safe home. It allows adults to be both vulnerable and stable resources. And it takes a widely familiar song, one that could seem childish/childlike and elevates it to the reality of its message. Letting our own lights glow, even in the worst of time, may do as much for those around us as for ourselves. Letting that glow grow, letting it rekindle the light in others, is profound. This lnew picture book celebrates that.
