Little Man, Little Man

Not many kids' books come with a foreword, an introduction (with endnotes), and an afterword, but the reappearance of the only children's book by the great James Baldwin (nearly forgotten after it was published, to little notice, in 1976) does carry some weight. But the story, as soon as you begin it, claims its own rhythm, locking onto the voices of TJ, WT, and Blinky, the kids on a Harlem block, who see the adult lives around them with the knowing eyes of children (it reminded me most of Lynda Barry's Marlys comics). Is it a kids' book, or, as Baldwin described it, a "child's story for adults"? Either way, it possesses the patient subtlety of revealed character and the measured empathy for human pain of his finest stories. (Ages 8 and up)