![]() ![]() TJ sees other boys playing ball, shooting craps, and playing cards, then heading to the roof "to shoot that dope in their veins." and looking like they're asleep when they come back. ![]() ![]() 8)īut this is also a book that interrogates some very mature themes like police abuse, alcoholism, and domestic violence, and some of what TJ sees around him may sound very scary to today's readers. For example, Blinky says she needs glasses to see, but when TJ tried her glasses on, he couldn't see anything, hence, "if he can't see out them, how she going to see out them?" (pg. TJ, despite being only 4, has the uncanny ability of all urban children of being able to play outside with his friends while also observing what he sees around him, and applying the logic and often the humor of a child to explain or question things. Well, Uncle Jimmy came through for him with Little Man Little Man, whose 4 year old main character TJ is loosely based on his nephew.īaldwin has captured life on the streets of Harlem as seen through the eyes of four-year-old TJ, while he plays outside with his friends WT, a 7 year old boy, and Blinky, an 8 year old girl. Written in the mid 1970s and published in 1976, this is James Baldwin's only children's book and one he wrote for Tejan Karefa-Smart, his then about 8 years old, who wanted to know when his Uncle Jimmy was going to write a book about him. This book is most definitely not your conventional children's story. ![]()
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