I CAN WRITE THE WORLD
JOSHUNDA SANDERS ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLY PALMER
I CAN WRITE THE WORLD Joshunda Sanders Illustrated by
Charly Palmer
SIX FOOT PRESS HOUSTON • LOS ANGELES
The sun lights the sky over the Bronx Bright orange and yellow The smell of freshly baked bread in the air from the Bakery up the street The rattle of a fruit stand below
Rising up from the corner blow Honking horns, salsa, and hip-hop music The beeping of a truck that tows My Bronx is a world of many colors and sounds Shapes and sizes that are bright and bold
My name is Ava Murray I am 8 years old
Mornings with Mommy include the news Images and words I don’t always catch Views from the outside in I think these are stories about my home But how I feel and what I see don’t always match
A girl about my age flashes on screen It looks like adults are just being mean She did something against the rules Painting pretty pictures That make plain walls sparkle like jewels
“Why is she in trouble?” I ask my Mom, Kim “Because she made something pretty, but she didn’t ask for permission,” Mom says The art is called graffiti and it is one way Kids who want to create Share their talents with the world
“Creativity is using what you have To make a map of your dreams What you see in your mind Or feel in your heart Can come out in dance, colors, or beats�
When she was my age, there were no Art classes at school But Black and Brown kids taught themselves to Move, sketch, rap, and made hip-hop culture cool
“Sometimes the way the world sees us Is different from how we see ourselves,� Mom says She is talking about the news and its views
“See the frame around the window? It shapes Everything you see below Journalists on the news are Like the window frame,” Mom says “They tell the stories they think we should know”
Listening to Mom talk Makes me imagine myself watching the Bronx From the sidewalk Talking to my neighbors Typing up the stories I find everywhere I walk
At school, the thoughts and feelings still swirl When we are asked to write about what we love About where we live I remember Mom’s story and think, “I can write the world”
“Can I interview you for my first story?” I ask Mom “Of course, Ava. I’d be honored,” she says Her face lighting up like sunshine “Tell me more about the music and art you and your Classmates made”
At an old park, she says, “This is where it all began With Grandmaster Flash and Kool Herc who made New sounds from music with records and a Microphone�
“Like a lot of our neighbors who are from islands Like Puerto Rico or Haiti or Jamaica When they came to the Bronx, they brought the Sounds of their homelands: Salsa, reggae”
“Hip-hop music has all of that in it, too Along with African drumbeats, Dancehall Jazz, Rhythm & Blues”
She reminds me of the huge parties In the summer on our block With speakers so big the music makes The whole Bronx rock “Everything we make is connected to the past,” Mom says. “It’s how you make the art you love last”
“Long ago in Egypt, the first graffiti was made of Symbols called hieroglyphics The meaning of every mark, then and now, Was tailored and specific�
When I tell the story of the Bronx I know and love I share the story of art forms that traveled miles and Years to get here “Some stories about our home focus on the bad, not The good,� I say at the end
“But what is most beautiful in our world, what Makes the Bronx stand out, may not always be Understood�
What matters most is that we know we are Connected to people who have always made the Most of the world they were given Making visible the beauty That otherwise might be hidden
This is what journalists have always done So I decide I will be one. To be continued . . .
Joshunda Sanders has been a prolific journalist since 1999 and served as a staff writer for some of the nation’s largest news organizations, including the San Francisco Chronicle and the Houston Chronicle. She has also worked as a federal speechwriter, as Press Secretary to the Secretary of Energy during the Obama Administration, and as Director of Communications in North America for Change.org. She teaches in the First-Year Writing Program at The New School in New York City. She earned a BA in English at Vassar College and an MS in Information Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She lives in the Bronx, not far from where she was raised.
Charly Palmer is an award-winning painter and collagist whose first children’s book, Mama Africa!: How Miriam Makeba Spread Hope with Her Song, won a Coretta Scott King Award and was named a Kirkus Best Book of 2017.
I CAN WRITE THE WORLD Published by Six Foot Press Coert Voorhees, President Chul R. Kim, Publisher
First edition 2019 © 2019 Six Foot Press Text © 2019 Joshunda Sanders Illustrations © 2019 Charlie L. Palmer Edited by Chul R. Kim Designed by Patrick Seymour, Tsang Seymour Design Printed by Taeshin Inpack Co. Ltd. This book is typeset in Clarendon Boldface Special thanks to Regina Brooks, Serendipity Literary Agency, and to Carla Precht and her colleagues at the Bronx Children’s Museum. Joshunda Sanders would like to dedicate this book to Marguerite and to her honorable ancestors, who have always given her the courage to dream worlds.
in My Closet. Palmer lives in Atlanta.
Charly Palmer dedicates this book to his beautiful children and grandchildren, who are his inspiration. All that he is, or ever will be, he owes to his mother.
Learn more about I Can Write the World at
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication data available from the publisher.
He is also the illustrator of There’s a Dragon
sixfootpress.com!
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