A collection of poems expressing the hopes, fears, joys, and sorrows of growing up.

“Something on My Mind,” written by Nikki Grimes and illustrated by Tom Feelings, was given the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award in 1979. The illustrations are all in black and white and were made with mixed media such as charcoal, pen and ink, markers, and pencil. Grimes’ audience is mostly African American children in the seventies. Her poems address fears of growing up, desires to be included, family, friends, dreams, embarrassment, struggles, death, and heartbreak, which almost anyone of any age or ethnicity can identify with. Her prose, coupled with Feelings’ stunning illustrations, allows the reader to literally feel the pain, happiness, anxiety, excitement, or disappointment expressed in the text. Each poem expresses a linear thought, but the illustrations are worth a thousand words. The expressions on each child’s face, the position of their hands, the angle of their heads, give each child an individual soul, a life, a past, even a personality.
“Something on My Mind” can be read to children of all ages, simply as a book of poems for younger children and a possible way to address to older children and teenagers that even people who appear flawless on the outside have their own issues in their lives that they may not know about. I have never been so moved by illustrations in a book and feel privileged to have chosen it. It has impacted me in ways I don’t know how to express, and it has changed me as a reader. ( )

The pictures, by Tom Feelings, came first and Nikki Grimes wrote the poems that fit the illustrations. They are about Black children in an unnamed city. Most of the children are sitting --- easier to draw that way --- and seem to be waiting for something. Both the pictures and the words express emotions and ideas thoughtfully and seriously and cleverly and briefly and ... Impressive book of visual and verbal snapshots. My favorite was about a student asked to write about her summer vacation and realizing that the teacher doesn't really want to hear what actually happened. ( )