DARK SONS

Lyrical free verse crosses time and reaches hearts as Dion Graham animates the parallel stories of Ishmael, the biblical son of Abraham and Hagar, and contemporary African-American teenager Sam, whose father has left his family to marry a white woman. Both sons feel lost, diminished, and jealous after second sons are born; both curse God, mourn losses, and finally come to love their stepbrothers. Graham sows Nikki Grimes’s melodic words with dark, powerful feelings. He precisely and softly delivers Ishmael’s imagery, as if the biblical child’s feelings whisper across time to Sam’s world. Sam’s narrative is delivered in harsher, more sorrowful and sarcastic, tones—until he reads Ishmael’s story. When he discovers the link to his “dark brother,” Graham lights his last words with hope. S.W. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: DECEMBER 2010]