Amiri & Odette: A Love Story

The folktale of Swan Lake is retold as a poem by Walter Dean Myers and set in an urban environment. This creative poem combined with the fantabulous (yes I said fantabulous) artwork by Javaka Steptoe make a wonderful book.

Personally, I am not very familiar with Swan Lake, but I must say that I enjoyed this version. Since it was quite new to me, I must admit that I was engaged with the text and loved the trickery by the antagonist. In my opinion Myers did a wonderful job of transforming the story to the Swan Lake Projects.

Steptoe's collages are brilliant! He used slabs of asphalt as his canvas highlighted with acrylic paints and various materials such as 14k jewelry, candy wrappers, newspapers, and more. I truly cannot say enough good things about these paintings.

I highly recommend this book for upper elementary or even middle school.

Happy Reading,
Dr. Quinn