Fifteen poems by Langston Hughes are lovingly illustrated by artist Ashley Bryan in brightly colored, cut-paper collage. There is such jubilance in Bryan’s images, which singularly celebrate the natural world about which Hughes was writing in many of the poems. There are also beautiful, brown-skinned children, whom both poet and artist have strived to affirm. To hold this book is to feel joy. (Ages 3–10)

A celebration of mermaids, wildernesses of waves, and the creatures of the deep through poems by Langston Hughes and cut-paper collage illustrations by multiple Coretta Scott King Award winner Ashley Bryan.

The great African American poet Langston Hughes penned poem after poem about the majesty of the sea, and the great African American artist Ashley Bryan, who’s spent more than half his life on a small island, is as drawn to the sea as much as he draws the sea.

Their talents combine in this windswept collection of illustrated poems—from “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” to “Seascape,” from “Sea Calm” to “Sea Charm”—that celebrates all things oceanic.