There Was a Party for Langston: (Caldecott Honor & Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor)

A Caldecott Honor Book
A Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book

New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Jason Reynolds's debut picture book is a snappy, joyous ode to Word King, literary genius, and glass-ceiling smasher Langston Hughes and the luminaries he inspired.

Back in the day, there was a heckuva party, a jam, for a word-making man. The King of Letters. Langston Hughes. His ABCs became drums, bumping jumping thumping like a heart the size of the whole country. They sent some people yelling and others, his word-children, to write their own glory.

Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, and more came be-bopping to recite poems at their hero's feet at that heckuva party at the Schomberg Library, dancing boom da boom, stepping and stomping, all in praise and love for Langston, world-mending word man. Oh, yeah, there was hoopla in Harlem, for its Renaissance man. A party for Langston.

Author: Jason Reynolds
Publisher: Atheneum Books
Published: 10/03/2023
Pages: 56
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 11.60h x 9.80w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9781534439443
Audience: Ages 4-8

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 4.4
Point Value: 0.5
Interest Level: Lower Grade
Quiz #/Name: 522465 / There Was a Party for Langston


Award: Caldecott Medal - Honor Book
Award: Coretta Scott King Award - Honor Book


Review Citation(s):
School Library Journal 07/01/2023 pg. 63
Kirkus Reviews 08/01/2023
Publishers Weekly 08/14/2023
Booklist 08/01/2023 pg. 62
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 11/01/2023
Shelf Awareness 11/21/2023
Horn Book Magazine 11/01/2023 pg. 105
Hornbook Guide to Children 07/01/2023 - Outstanding, Noteworthy In Style

About the Author
Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, recipient of the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Newbery Award Honoree, a Printz Award Honoree, a two-time National Book Award finalist, a 2024 MacArthur Fellow, a Kirkus Award winner, a UK Carnegie Medal winner, a two-time Walter Dean Myers Award winner, an NAACP Image Award Winner, an Odyssey Award Winner and two-time honoree, and the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors, a Coretta Scott King Author Award, and the Margaret A. Edwards Award. He was also the 2020-2022 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. His many books include All American Boys (cowritten with Brendan Kiely); When I Was the Greatest; The Boy in the Black Suit; Stamped; As Brave as You; For Every One; the Track series (Ghost, Patina, Sunny, Lu, and Coach); Look Both Ways; Stuntboy, in the Meantime; Stuntboy, In-Between Time; Miles Morales Suspended; Ain't Burned All the Bright (recipient of the Caldecott Honor) and My Name Is Jason. Mine Too. (both cowritten with Jason Griffin); Twenty-Four Seconds from Now...; and Long Way Down, which received a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Honor. His debut picture book, There Was a Party for Langston, won a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor. He lives in Washington, DC. You can find his ramblings at JasonWritesBooks.com.

Jerome Pumphrey is a designer, illustrator, and writer. His work includes It's a Sign!, Somewhere in the Bayou, The Old Boat, and The Old Truck, which received seven starred reviews, was named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, and received the Ezra Jack Keats Writer Award Honor--all of which he created with his brother Jarrett. They also illustrated Jason Reynolds's There Was a Party for Langston, which received a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor. Jerome works as a graphic designer at The Walt Disney Company. He lives in Texas.

Jarrett Pumphrey is an award-winning author-illustrator who makes books for kids with his brother, Jerome. Their books include It's a Sign!, Somewhere in the Bayou, The Old Boat, and The Old Truck, which received seven starred reviews, was named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, and received the Ezra Jack Keats Writer Award Honor. They also illustrated Jason Reynolds's There Was a Party for Langston, which received a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor. Jarrett lives near Austin, Texas.