Just as Maud Martha is enamored of “everydayness,” Brooks spins gold from the details of everyday life, and I couldn’t help but delight in every finely rendered portrait of Maud Martha, even as she quickly progressed past her childhood years. When I attended a recent event promoting Little Leaders, a conversation between Harrison and recent GAL Alexis Coe, Harrison shared that her style was a deliberate choice, an opportunity to equate black girls with innocence and charm where they typically are not, and her explanation brought me to tears. I imagined young Maud Martha in the style of Vashti Harrison’s gouache-like digital illustrations featured in her book Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History: sweet, round face, closed eyes and serene smile.Ĭoincidentally, a tiny Gwendolyn Brooks proxy makes an appearance in Harrison’s book, clutching notebooks and a pencil, and twinkling behind circular tortoiseshell glasses. It’s not often that little black girls are given the space-in literature or in life-to rhapsodize about flowers and candy, and already I was reveling in the rarity of Gwendolyn Brooks’ celebratory prose. The text goes on to specify that Maud Martha is seven years old at the time of this description, and I found myself hoping that the story would linger there for a bit.

I have forced at least three friends to read these lines, just so I could gush over them with someone who had experienced them, too. The first of Maud Martha’s thirty-four vignettes opens like a skylight, fresh air and pure, unfiltered light rushing in to swathe the reader in sweetness. I figured I’d take a quick look at the first few pages. Maud Martha arrived in the middle of a busy workday, but I remembered how the gentleman at McNally Jackson had lit up when talking about it. I now have a system when I acquire a new book: skim the blurbs, check how many pages it has, set a realistic daily reading goal in order to have both the book and the accompanying essay finished by the upcoming Saturday. Of course, my deadline was immovable, so I gave in to the siren song of Amazon Prime and it arrived on Tuesday afternoon. He said that he’d made it his personal mission to keep this book in stock-it was that good-but it was easier said than done.

He could order one for me, but it might take weeks, as he suspected that each order was printed on demand. He explained that there was only one press still producing the title. Suddenly, a new employee appeared behind the desk: “So here’s the deal with Maud Martha,” he began. Monitors were consulted shelves were searched. The website said that there was one copy of Maud Martha in stock, but when I arrived at McNally Jackson last Sunday, it turned out that it had been sold.

Maud martha