4.5 out of 5 stars.

Strange Fruit by Gary Golio (author) and Charlotte Riley-Webb (Illustrator) is an absolutely wonderful picture book about Billie Holiday's famous song with the same title.

The first thing you notice in this book are the illustrations. They are vibrant and seemingly leap from the pages. They're sort of brash and crazy, but they're absolutely beautiful and just right for this book. I'm not sure of the medium. They appear to be either oil paint or pastels. Perhaps even oil pastels. Whatever was used, the broad strokes and vibrant colors combine just perfectly.

The story line of the book is well told and moves along at a decent pace. The prose is well written and it's definitely a story that deserves to be, even needs to be told. It's not a real nice story as far as "happy ever after" and making you smile all the way through, but it's a needed story and a well written one. It will make you think. It may cause difficult discussions between you and any children you read it with, but it's an important story to tell and an important piece of history (and unfortunately, to a point, part of current events as well) that needs to be discussed.

The only reason this picture book did not get 5 stars from me is because I felt that at times, the text was difficult to read because of the vibrant illustrations and the small font used. Now, I did read this book as an eBook and not in print format. Perhaps it is easier to read the text in the print format. Other than that small issue, this book is phenomenal and I highly recommend it to everyone. Those who are fans of Billie Holiday will certainly appreciate it, but I believe that it's a great book for everyone, not just those who are fans.

This picture book biography for older readers tells two stories that are intertwined. First, it is the story of Billie Holiday’s life, a life was never easy right from the beginning. Her mother left her with an older half sister when she was a baby. At 10, Billie ended up in a reform school for something that wasn’t her fault. After she finally went to NYC to live with her mother, both of them ended up in jail when Billie was 14.

But Billie Holiday loved to sing and jazz was her style of choice. She was hired by white bandleader Artie Shaw, and even though she was a spotlight singer on his tours, she still faced discrimination everywhere they went because of her race. Finally, Billie Holiday had had enough and she quit Artie Shaw’s band. Striking out on her own, she began to sing in a new Greenwich Village club called Cafe Society, a place with black and white customers and performers weren’t segregated.

Cafe Society was opened by Barney Josephson, and it was here, in 1939, that Billie Holiday premiered a radical new song called “Strange Fruit.” High school teacher, Abel Meeropol, the son of Jewish immigrants, was so outraged by America’s racism and especially the violence faced by African Americans, that he wrote “Strange Fruit” after seeing a picture of a lynching. And that is exactly was “Strange Fruit” is about. And when Billie Holiday sang it at Cafe Society, it was always the last song of the night and all activity stopped until she was done.

Strange Fruit is a very powerful biography about Billie Holiday, one that brings to light the way she was regarded because of her race from childhood on, and the shameful treatment she received because of it, despite being a popular black female singer with whites in the 1930s and 1940s.

And yet, as compelling and powerful as Strange Fruit is, I question who it if for. It is recommended for readers age 8+, but some young readers may be too sensitive for the material covered. I think it feels like a book that should be given to readers a few years older, readers who may have a better background understanding of what life was like for African Americans in this country before the Civil Rights Movement.

Since “Strange Fruit” was a signature song for Billie Holiday, I think that as a book for older readers, Strange Fruit could be paired with Marilyn Nelson’s book A Wreath for Emmett Till to give students a more balanced picture, and a deeper understanding of the despicable practice lynching. I would have like to see more about Abel Meeropol but could not find a children’s book about the author of such a formidable protest song. I do know that Meeropol taught in the Bronx, and that he and his wife Anne adopted the two sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953 after they were executed.

Riley-Webb’s illustrations done in boldly textured brush stokes using acrylics and tissue collage, are as colorful and dynamic as the jazz Billie Holiday sang, and the sometimes light, sometimes dark images give the story being told a very dramatic intensity.

The lyrics to “Strange Fruit” and additional biographical information about Billie Holiday are included in the back matter.

You can find a Teaching Guide for Strange Fruit that was prepared by Vicki Spandel and recommend for older readers HERE.

This book is recommended for readers age 8+ but I would definitely go older
This book was an EARC received from NetGalley

I had never heard the story of Billie Holiday's life before and being that I grew up in New Zealand I did not know much black history. I knew nothing about the song "Strange Fruit" and had to look it up, oh my word it is such a powerful emotional song.

This book does the song and Billie's life story justice, the artwork is stunning and the paragraphs and writing style are perfect for young kids to understand the complex issues. My son is autistic and he was able to understand the facts being expressed better than many non-fiction books out there.

I recommend this book to any parent looking to educate their children on racial issues or Black history, also music history. This would also be an ideal book for teachers to use in class.

Nonfiction
6-12
My undergraduate degree is in history. That’s big, so my focus was on the modernist “movement” which swept across Europe and then North America, roughly 1880-1939, impacting everything from politics to literature and art. Protest songs were key to our studies of American civil rights history, of course, and one of the pieces of music we used was Strange Fruit, recorded by the incredible jazz singer Billie Holliday. I didn’t know the song, and so it was a shock to me to learn that the strange “fruit” are in fact the dead bodies of lynching victims. It is a powerful song, a lament and a call to action in its time. It became known as Billie’s signature song, and this picture book for older children introduces readers to the song and its origins, in a way that is age appropriate. The 40-page book is lavishly illustrated by Charlotte Riley-Webb, using acrylic paint and tissue collage on canvas. The result is a wild wash of vibrant colour and movement, just as we would imagine jazz would “look”! (It makes me want to don a yellow dress and go dancing!) But of course, the story is one of racism and a demand for change. Billie’s short and troubled life is described in brief detail, and we are also introduced to Abel Meeropol, who wrote the song under the pen name Lewis Allan. We learn a bit about life as a black singer in 1930s New York, when even a star as celebrated as Ms. Holliday experienced the indignities of segregation and racism. Even the mere singing of this song put her at risk. Once she made the song her own, she sang it to close every performance, giving further strength to an already powerful song. With a couple of pages of informative endmatter extending the information on both the song and the singer, children learn that about a troubling time in American history, and that a song can entertain and perhaps even change the world. My thanks to publisher Millbrook Press for the advance reading copy, in full and glorious color, provided in exchange for my honest review.
More discussion and reviews of this book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31319736

I loved everything about this book! Charlotte Riley-Webb's illustrations were amazingly lush and evocative of exactly what I imagine the Harlem Renaissance would feel like. I appreciated the sensitive and direct manner that Gary Golio approached topics that are difficult for adults, let alone children. Framing the entire story around the song Strange Fruit was an excellent way to learn about a seminal song and to touch on segregation and the atrocity of lynching.
I plan to buy a copy of this book to share with my daughter.

This song is an interesting choice for a picture book subject. While it is Billie Holiday's most well known song, a definite part of her discography, it is very dark. And while the lyrics are not the sole focus, they are an undeniable element. So, not one to pick for the very young. I could see using it in an upper elementary classroom, the age where the right picture book is still an appropriate way to introduce a complex topic. one could use this book as a starting point for a number of issues, even a discussion of racism in mdern society.

Billie Holiday had survived a rough childhood that saw her jailed at age 14 and become a successful jazz singer. Despite her success though, she was still forbidden to do things that her white band members were allowed. She had to hide in rooms, take freight elevators and pretend to be someone different in order to stay in hotels and not sleep on the tour bus. This was all dangerous and eventually she quit. She found a new place to sing in Cafe Society, the first jazz club that welcomed African-American audience members. It was there that she was given the song, Strange Fruit, a song that would become her best-known work. A song that was so powerful that it was met with silence the first time she sang it. A song that would come to speak to a new generation as they stand together today.

Golio has taken a song that is about lynching and turned it into a picture book. It’s a daring subject for a book for young readers, yet he makes it entirely understandable. He uses notes at the end of the book to continue Holiday’s story and also speak about lynching and its history in the United States. The bulk of the picture book is about Holiday’s struggles in the 1930s with pervasive racism and the way that this song spoke to her personal experience and that of all African-Americans.

The illustrations are deep and powerful. They show the pain of racism, the power of song, the energy of a performance and the drama of silence and darkness. Done in acrylic paint and tissue collage, they have a wild freedom of line that works well with the intense subject matter.

An important picture book about a song that has transcended generations and speaks to the struggles of today and yesterday. Appropriate for ages 7-11.

A beautifully illustrated and informative book. The rich pictures lend movement to the words. This is not a child's picture book, but instead, more of a documentary of the song Strange Fruit and what it meant to the artist, Billie Holiday, who performed it. I have loved this song for years but had never really given thought to how it came about that Billie Holiday sang it, and what she had to put up with from society for doing so. This is a book that can be enjoyed by all ages. A young child will enjoy the illustrations, while the story may have little meaning to them. The informational text would be beneficial to middle schoolers and older. The mix of the two may best be enjoyed by adults. This book has something for everyone.

What a gorgeous, gorgeous, book! The story of "Strange Fruit" is a powerful one, and one that needs to be told. The prose and the art combine wonderfully to bring this story to life. Just fantastic. A must-read and a must-have!

This short book is part autobiography, part explanation of Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday. This book was a nice introduction to Billie Holiday's song, but I really would have liked more detail within the story as to the impact that the song had. Considering how chilling and poignant the song itself is, I expected a similar tone in the book. This would still be a nice way to share protest songs with upper elementary students, though.

I was arrested by the cover and the concept and requested to review immediately.

The art remains arresting. The stylized figures and the thick texture of the paint add so much while not requiring a lot of detail. The style fits the jazz feeling very well. The palate is dark, as is most of the story: This isn't a happy, jumping jazz tale. The art delineates the theme and plot exactly as it's written.

That being said, the plot feels a bit disjointed. The story of Billie Holiday is one we need in picture books. The story of Strange Fruit is one we need in picture books. This is two stories glued together, neither finished. The story itself is accurate, as far as I can tell, but the narrative doesn't flow. It feels as if the art is the only thing connecting these two pieces of the story. We are led through all of Billie's life in a timeline that is engaging. Starting at the Blue Room and Billie's rage is smart. Then backtracking and following her path through clubs she could be in freely is a smart path. But the story doesn't really keep the thread of her activism or anger, and feels like she's just going along with Strange Fruit and then using it as a 'since it's there, I might as well'.

I want more from both parts. I want to know where Billie went from there, not just negotiating the song into her contracts. I want more emotion in the inception of Strange Fruit. I want the two things to be intertwined.

The world is starved for diverse books that challenge kids and show real life. This will get used by teachers for discussing civil rights, jazz, segretation and racism. But they deserve a bit more.

I have read a few children’s books about Billie Holiday. This one, while glossing over much of her life, focuses on one particular day and one special song. This was Billie’s fight song. The one that let people know she was going to stand as a proud black woman and not let anyone knock her down. It’s an approachable book for any age, and puts the past in the hands of today’s young, so they can see the history repeating itself, and maybe, just maybe, push for a stop. To really see a world where all are equal.

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