Josephine Book Review

Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker

Powell, Patricia Hruby and Christian Robinson. JOSEPHINE: THE DAZZLING LIFE OF JOSEPHINE BAKER. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, LLC., 2014.

ISBN: 978-1-4521-2971-6

Patricia Hruby Powell and Christian Robinson successfully capture the vibrant life of Josephine Baker in word and picture in a blending of sound and vision, much like Josephine herself. Josephine Baker was born in segregated Black East St. Louis. Josephine helped her mother scrub floors and learned to love dance from her. St. Louis, Missouri was the home of "raggedy black music— gotta-make-the-rent music— lift-my-soul music— GOLDEN-age music" (p. 9) and it slipped into her body and soul. As soon as she walked, she danced. She danced in the streets as a child with street musicians, then joined touring acts. She moved from location to location, hoping to find a place that welcomed her in a segregated world. Eventually she found belonging in Paris, France. She danced in many other places, including Broadway, but she always returned to France where she blossomed.

The focus of this book is squarely on Josephine Baker (as she would like it!). Powell uses blank verse to narrate the facts of Josephine's life, because it is a sparkling song full of verve and fire, just as Josephine danced. The short poetry lines make the eye bounce through the page in rhythm, punctuated with typographical placement and tricks like all cap words that leap from the page, like Josephine deliberately kicking down when the other girls kick up and winking at the audience. Sometimes the all cap and word placement is jarring, like the POOFS of Josephine suppressing her anger at racism and segregation, then letting that anger out in her frantic dancing. She needed lots of these POOFS, because she witnessed not just the casual racism of dancing at clubs where she wasn't allowed to eat dinner at their tables, but race riots where white people beat black men in front of her. Josephine Baker became the first and only Black Ziegfeld Follies star, performing on Broadway, "yet she had to enter her hotel through the servants' entrance. All the white stars ignored her" (p. 65). She also encountered colorism within her own community. She said, "To the whites I looked chocolate, to the blacks, like a pinky" (p. 34). Eventually she found her home in France. Where she was loved she loved back, and she used her privilege in other places to lift others and desegregate.

  

Josephine Book Review 

Place is very important in Josephine's life. East St. Louis infused her soul with music. There she could see famous Black performers Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith perform at the Booker T. Washington Theater. However, it was also a place of poverty. Poor white workers were jealous of some Black workers within the Black community making higher wages, so they incited "to beat, murder, and burn Black East St. Louis" (p. 18). The deep South was not better. It was even more segregated. She went to Philadelphia which was not much better, then on to New York City, because she heard that there was an all-black show on Broadway. They did not hire her because she was "too small, too thin, too dark" (p. 41). Through perseverance, she made her way to Paris. In Paris, there was no segregation. When they landed in Paris, "We were welcomed... we couldn't believe our eyes. Were the French color-blind?" (p. 50). Though she traveled a lot, France is where she made her home.

Christian Robinson's illustrations make Powell's words soar. He based his illustrations on Paul Colin, the artist who first painted Josephine as the poster girl for La Revue Negre. It is evocative of her 1930s exuberance. He uses bold, saturated colors on sparse background, so that the images leap, dancing from the page. The ship from New York to Paris (p. 48) is a graphic realization of segregation: the white people on the deck, physically separated by the Black performers who are below them, separated by a thick, black line. The reader can not avoid the symbolism. While Josephine is always centered boldly and largely on the page, nameless white people who are segregating themselves from her are depicted off-center, and even without faces (p. 45).

There is front and back matter that source where Powell and Robinson researched the life of Josephine Baker, including the quotes from Baker included in the story (indicated in cursive and italics throughout).

Where Josephine was loved, she loved back. She loved dance and worked and dedicated her life to it. It gave her the attention and adoration she craved. Dance, performing, and fame gave her the chance to help desegregate those spaces. As her fame increased, she would require that Black audience members be seated up front, or demand that Black soldiers mingle with white ones at USO performances. In France, the people adored and feted her. She returned that veneration by nursing wounded in France during WWII, feeding the poor, and spying on the invading Nazis. She gave generously, living her life according to her own beliefs.

 Josephine Baker's Burial in France 

Programming Connection

Students will choose a contemporary entertainer and research their lives. They will watch a video with illustrator Christian Robinson as he discusses his post-it drawing process. Students will quick-sketch 4 post-it notes that illustrate key moments of their subject and add short, declarative blank verse phrases to accompany the pictures, creating a brief but impactful biography.