I Love My People: A Child’s Celebration of Black Culture

Singleton orchestrates a celebration of Black culture through this rousing picture book adaptation of her title for adults, I Love My People. Beginning with the titular phrase, rigidly rhyming lines build on the concept: “When I ask them why,/ They say it so loud,/ ‘It’s our history, our culture,/ That makes us so proud.’ ” In Holt’s realistic illustrations, brown-skinned community members celebrate Kwanzaa and Juneteenth, and meander in and out of a bookstore, a soul food café, and a barbershop (“All around/ My community I see/ The influence of people/ Who look just like me”). At church, attendees pray and protest; later, a child reads at a table while having their hair braided. As the pages turn, text and image shout out notable Black figures in the arts, sciences, athletics, activism, politics, and more, while two grinning children playact in the influential figures’ roles. Dynamic portraits of past and present combine with a passionate refrain: “I love my people.” Contextualizing back matter concludes. Ages 4–8. (Jan.)