You can’t help it: it’s human nature to scribble stars and
squiggles, to write your name, make boxes around words, and
draw silly faces. If there’s a pen in your hand, you use it,
right? And in Infinite Hope by Ashley Bryan, one
man used a pen to stay alive.
Like every child with some crayons and paper, Ashley Bryan loved
to make art. Even his teachers noticed his talent and they
nurtured it but alas, Bryan couldn’t land a scholarship to
art colleges because of the color of his skin. It was the
early 1940s, and Jim Crow laws didn’t allow it.
On the advice of others, Bryan applied to attend The Cooper Union
in New York City and he loved it there. The school helped
grow his talents and he was eager for the future – but then,
at age 19, he received his draft notice.
Bryan was headed for World War II.
For someone who grew up in the North, Basic Training was quite
unexpected. Men at the military induction center were told
“’whites on one side. blacks on the other’,” and Bryan was
shocked! It took a minute to understand that the military
was segregated but, like all black soldiers then, he hoped
that serving during wartime might lead to “equal treatment
for all.”
Sometimes, soldiering was boring, so Bryan drew. He sketched
fellow soldiers, their bunks, and their jobs. He drew the
children who befriended him near his first post in Boston.
He painted pictures of the docks. When he went overseas, he
sketched castles in Scotland and villages in the
countryside. He wrote letters home to his cousin, Eva, and
he drew card games and cold mornings until June 2, 1944,
when Bryan and his brothers-in-arms were sent to Normandy.
There, he drew cathedrals, people, despair, and destruction.
He wrote to Eva about what he saw and when the war was over,
that was that.
“I left my drawings in the map-case bureau for forty years…”
Readers looking for Infinite Hope may be left scratching
their heads. It’s likely to be found in the Teen or even the
kids’ section of your local library or bookstore – and yet,
this book is absolutely perfect for any adult.
Without a lot of narrative, author-illustrator Ashley Bryan tells
a tale of segregation, war, racism, and horror but while
it’s vividly told, readers aren’t left aching: threaded in
with every chapter of Bryan’s life is a also sense of joy.
He takes obvious delight in the people he meets and he has
his art: soaring sketches, pensive portraits, and single
lines drawn thick to depict the chaos of war. These are
accompanied, collage-like, with letters home that are
multi-layered over the art and that will leave an impact on
newly-aware teens and adults who remember all too well.
Either way, give Infinite Hope and then borrow it back to
see yourself. Any reader ages 15 to Grandpa, will be quickly
drawn in.
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