Becoming Billie Holiday

by Carole Boston Weatherford
Art by Floyd Cooper
PRMS hardcover 111 pages
genre: YA prose poetry based on Holiday's life

This was amazing! I never knew Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan) had such a hard life. Weatherford's poems cover her young life into her early fame as a singer. Cooper's illustrations are powerful. It makes me want to listen to some of her music (which I haven't heard in a long time). This has been on my shelf for a long time, and I wondered what kind of reader I could recommend it to. Now I know. Lady sings the blues, indeed. With a childhood like hers, I can see why that music resonated for her.