Gwendolyn Brooks

This collection of poems, first published in 1956, reveals the heroes we see in our everyday lives. Vibrant paintings add a fresh, new dimension and bring the poet’s Chicago neighborhood to life.

“Life is for me/and is shining!” begins the poem and continues as the child expresses her wish for a peaceful world in which there is laughter and family. Watercolors are both fantastical and realistic as the poem continues to a gleeful, “Life is for us,/and is shining./We have a right to sing.”