Inspired by Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology, Walter Dean Myers gives voices to residents of the Harlem community in which he grew up. Period photographs accompany the varied poems, each about a resident of Harlem, and together, evoke the multiplicity of the place and time -- 53 people, from student to teacher, from hairdresser to mail carrier, from live-in maid to jazz artist. The result is stunning - and memorable.
