School Library Journal Starred Review (Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 CST 2009)

Gr 3-6 Like the steady and determined flow of a river, this poem carries readers along as Hughes draws a metaphorical connection between the waterways of the world and African-American culture. Moving from ancient times ("I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young" or "I looked upon the Nile and raised pyramids above") to the Mississippi River and its connection to slavery, the poem offers both a time line of the African-American experience and a comment on the perseverance of the African-American soul. The exquisite illustrations make the eloquent verses all the more accessible. Lewis is at his best here, and the use of watercolors to evoke the flow of a river is particularly apt. The artist's double-page depictions of black individualsevocative portraits of faces, an image of a parent and child asleep in a hammock outside a "hut near the Congo," or a close-up of a pair of brown hands lifting an earthenware potdovetail perfectly with Hughes's words and ideas. A vivid gold-infused painting of a boy and his grandfather fishing in the Mississippi's muddy waters suggests a hope that the river and the African-American soul will endure. A must for poetry collections. Joan Kindig, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA

Horn Book (Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2009)

From the pen of a teenage Hughes, this lyrical piece celebrates a people's enduring determination to survive. Lewis's landscape paintings, in earth-tone shades cooled by the blues of the rivers, are populated with a cross-generation of African Americans throughout history and also of today.

Kirkus Reviews

A visual paean to Hughes's enduring poem, Lewis's images make a personal connection to a taproot of feelings. The 12 lines of the poem, considered Hughes's signature song of the Harlem Renaissance, are poignantly expressed through the artist's trademark watercolors, which depict in successive double-page spreads black children playing by the Euphrates, a mother and child sleeping by the Congo and fishermen with a net waist-deep in the Nile. The penultimate image, also depicted on the cover, brings the poem into the present with a grandfather and child fishing by a modern Mississippi River bridge. Lewis states in a concluding note that he nearly drowned as a child, and his paintings are awash with emotion. While the picture-book format targets the book for young readers, the word "Negro" in the title may require some context. It has the capacity to reach far above the normal picture-book ages, however, and should be considered for older collections. The beautifully reverent, serene cover image will persuade all to look inside. (Picture book. 5 & up)

Starred Review ALA Booklist (Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 CDT 2008)

Starred Review In perhaps his most powerful effort to date, Lewis illustrates the classic Langston Hughes poem named in this beautiful picture book's title. Each spread pairs a line of poetry with soaring watercolor artwork. Like the poem, the images celebrate African American strength through generations, and each picture is both timeless and weighted with history. In the picture accompanying the line "I heard the singing of the Mississippi," a man springs from the muddy water, while a nineteenth-century steamboat passing on the far shore sets the image in time and opens up deeper questions about the man's place in the world: is he free? Some scenes are literal: on a jungle riverbank, a mother holds her dozing child next to the line "I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep." Others are powerful visual metaphors: brown hands hold a brown earthen water jug under the words "older than the flow of human blood in human veins." Lewis' dramatic, expertly modulated fluctuations between light and dark evoke the poem's dichotomies of celebration and sorrow, the spiritual and the material worlds, and the single soul that follows millions of ancestors. Even if children don't grasp the meaning in every line, they'll easily connect with these luminous, soul-stirring pictures that honor both African American heritage and the whole human family. Transcendent images for a transcendent poem.

Starred Review for Publishers Weekly

“I’ve known rivers:/ I’ve known rivers ancient as the world,” Hughes’s poem begins; like the poem, Lewis’s radiant watercolors convey great depth. Rivers all over the world—the Congo, the Euphrates, the Nile, the Mississippi—become the stage for portraying the experiences of black people throughout history. As an endnote explains, the artist includes a self-portrait as well, for the line “My soul has grown deep like the rivers.” A particularly striking work, it depicts a man in prayer, his face in shadow as he bows his head over his joined hands; a shaft of sunlight stripes the man’s forehead and shoulders while his upper body reflects the colors of all the rivers in the book—a figurative expression of Hughes’s conceit that people have drawn strength from life-giving waters. Other paintings are more realistic, e.g., a parent and child asleep in a hammock outside their hut near the Congo. The interplay of light, water and color unites the compositions artistically, creating a book as eloquent as the text at its foundation. Ages 4–8. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Jan.)