Book Review -- My Man Blue (Module 3)

Poetry

1. Bibliography

Grimes, Nikki. MY MAN BLUE. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1999. ISBN 0142301973.

2. Plot Summary

Fourteen poems show the progression of a relationship between a man named Blue and a young boy named Damon. The first poem professes Damon's admiration for this man, this "Gentle giant." In the following poem, we are taken backward in time to the day Blue and Damon met. Initially, Damon suspects that Blue's attentions are meant to impress Damon's single-parent mother, and this is not a scenario Damon favors at all. However, we are shown later in the poem and in the succeeding ones that Blue is sincere and has no alterior motives in befriending young Damon. Blue earns Damon's respect and affinity through his insight, genuine concern, and example. In the final poem, Damon concludes, "One day I'll be like Blue."

3. Critical Analysis

These poems show the risks and rewards of trusting through the eyes of a skeptical young boy named Damon. Serving as the narrator, Damon carries around the distrust and pain from having an absentee father. When a man named Blue comes into his life, Damon must decide whether or not to allow him to matter. Initially he fights the impulse. Blue wins him over and becomes a father figure. Each poem shows an interaction with Blue, or an event in which Blue's advice or insight are useful to Damon to get through the situation. We are shown two people with their own pain and issues - one having lost a son, one with an absentee father - whose individual losses help them connect in a complimentary and meaningful way. The language is very conversational and frank, descriptive and flowing. The rhyme scheme is fairly precise.

The illustrations by Jerome Lagarrigue look like oil paintings created with dark colors or colors in dark shades, presented in a somewhat impressionistic style. The lighting in most pictures gives the effect of a thunderstorm, in that most of the scenes are outside, and the sky is never clear and blue. It is shown as cloudy and gray with only some hints of blue at times; other times, the sky consists of mixed shades of brown, yellow, and green. The illustration for the opening poem, "My Man Blue" fittingly shows a close-up of Blue wearing a very pensive expression, with faint traces of blue paint woven into the contours of his dark brown skin.

Damon recounts an encounter with a "Class Bully", who happens to be a girl named Tiffany. Damon draws on Blue's admonition that "Guys don't hit girls" and acts accordingly, even though he is taunted as though he is weak as a result. Again he remembers Blue telling him that true strength comes from not hitting back. These poems show Blue's increasingly positive influence on Damon's life. The story, told through poems, not only pays homage to a man named Blue, but to the comfort forged through alternate families that often come into being by choice rather than by birth.

4. Review Excerts

Booklist review:

"In a simple, lyrical series of poems, Grimes speaks in the voice of Damon, a child in Harlem, whose "missing daddy's left a hole" and who finds a mentor in Blue, who lost a son to the streets. It's a scary place ("A boy got shot / At school last month"). Lagarrigue's strong realistic acrylic paintings show the poignant connection between the needy child and the gentle, heavily built man in the dangerous neighborhood, where wedges of blue sky are sandwiched in between the roofs."

School Library Journal review:

"A child's suspicion of the new man in his mother's life grows into admiration and love. . . . By the end, Damon is hoping, one day, to be 'Like Blue'; 'Not fierce/ In black leather/ Or built like/ A heavyweight/ Boxing machine/ But like that/ Other Blue I've seen/ The one who/ Says he cares/ And shows it.'"

5. Connections

This story could be used supplementary to lessons and discussion on character traits. It could be used to inspire writing about a person who had made a difference in the lives of the children. It could be used in a study of poetry to show a style of poetry that is conversational.