Bryan, Ashley F. 1923–

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Ashley F. Bryan 1923–

Writer

Ashley F. Bryan is a children’s book author and illustrator whose work is often culled from African folktales. Educators and library professionals give his books high marks for the exuberance and sensitivity of their artwork and text. In 2003, though he was nearly 80 years of age, the retired art professor was still writing and drawing from his coastal Maine island home, and anticipating the publication of his Zambian folktale, Beautiful Blackbird. Publishers Weekly writer Sally Lodge asked Bryan about his prolific career and indefatigable energy, but the writer explained, “I don’t really understand what one means by years. I approach everything as if I’ve just begun. I’m always discovering a new world and always have the urge to keep developing. Each time I finish something, I can’t wait to start again and do something even better.”

Spent Time in Europe

Bryan was born July 13, 1923, in New York City, and grew up in the Bronx and in Harlem. He was one of seven children, and his parents also made room for three cousins who had been orphaned. His father, a greeting-card printer, loved birds, and once Bryan counted a hundred of them in cages in their home. Besides memories of his home, Bryan recalled an idyllic time in the city during the 1930s. During his youth, he told American Visions interviewer Donna Gold, “New York City was a different world. There were no fears. It was the time of the Work Projects Administration; there were artists and musicians in the schools. We all drew, painted, played instruments.”

Bryan became an author at an early age; he wrote his first book, an alphabet primer, at the age of five for his kindergarten classmates. As a young adult, his interests began to focus exclusively on the visual arts. Bryan attended the Cooper Union School and Columbia University, and he fought during World War II. After the war he won a Fulbright scholarship for overseas study, and traveled in Europe and Africa before settling into a career as a painter and art teacher. Until the mid-1980s, Bryan was a professor of art and visual studies at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. When not teaching, he spent his summers in Maine, and later moved there permanently. His early artistic successes led to an offer to illustrate children’s books, and the first ones he did, in the late 1960s, were retellings of folk tales from India and France.

Bryan later came across some African folktales written for young people, and was dissatisfied with the stiffness of their English text. He decided to try retelling them himself, using translations done by anthropologists and missionaries who had lived and worked in Africa. In this way he was able to acquire a better understanding of the country’s language and culture. Among these first titles, which he also illustrated, were The Ox of the Wonderful Horns and Other African Folktales, published in 1971, and The Adventures of Aku; or, How It Came about That We Shall Always See Okra the Cat Lying on a Velvet Cushion While Okraman the Dog Sleeps among the Ashes. The latter was a 1976 tale that offers a whimsical explanation of the reason why dogs and cats seem to be natural foes.

At a Glance …

Born on Born July 13, 1923, in New York, NY, Education: Attended Cooper Union School and Columbia University. Military Service: US Army, World War II.

Career: Author and illustrator of books for children. Taught painting and drawing, Queen’s College, Brooklyn; taught Black American Poetry, Lafayette College, Easton, PA; taught children at Brooklyn Museum and The Dalton School, New York City; Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, professor of art and visual studies, then professor emeritus until 1986.

Awards: American Library Association, Social Responsibilities Round Table, Coretta Scott King Award, for illustrating Beat the Story-Drum, Pum-Pum, 1980, and for writing Lion and the Ostrich Chicks and Other African Folk Tales, 1986; Coretta Scott King Honor Award, for illustrating What a Morning! The Christmas Story in Black Spirituals, 1988; Silver Medallion, for contributions to children’s literature, University of Southern Mississippi.

Addresses: Home—Hadlock St, Isleford, ME 04646.

Began Writing for Children

Subsequent titles from his pen often featured Anansi, the trickster spider common to the folklore of several West African cultures. Bryan also drew upon his own Caribbean heritage, and Asian cultures as well, for some of his books. His 1988 retelling of a Japanese folktale, Sh-Ko and His Eight Wicked Brothers, is a tale of sibling rivalry and the triumph of substance over appearance. The title character, Sh-Ko, is teased because he is not handsome like his brothers, but the boy journeys with them to the court of Princess Yakami. On the way, Sh-Ko befriends a rabbit, which gives him a magical gift—and in the end, Sh-Ko wins the Princess’s love. A book by Bryan published the following year, Turtle Knows Your Name, urges readers to take pride in one’s heritage.

Many of Bryan’s books for children have been listed in the annual Coretta Scott King Awards of the American Library Association, and cited for their sensitivity. These have included Beat the Story-Drum, Pum-Pum, a collection of Nigerian folktales, and What a Morning! The Christmas Story in Black Spirituals. His 1992 book Sing to the Sun was his first for both children and adults. Its 23 poems, influenced by his Antiguan ancestry, won praise from a Publishers Weekly contributor, who noted that “Bryan’s language relies not only on resonant island rhythms but lyrical traditions as well.”

Bryan has also worked with poet Nikki Giovanni on a 1996 title for children, The Sun Is So Quiet, providing the illustrations to accompany her 13 poems. A reviewer in Publishers Weekly called theirs “a fruitful partnership,” and praised Giovanni’s “underlying exuberance” in her verse; the critic felt that it was a “joy reflected in the warmth and vigor of Bryan’s radiant, rainbow hues.” A perennial favorite with teachers and librarians, “Bryan has encouraged people to read his tales aloud, so that the meaning as well as the spirit of the stories may be fully appreciated,” noted an essay that appeared in the St. James Guide to Children’s Writers. “He has made several audio tapes of stories and poems himself, and his strong, vibrant voice brings them to life. He encourages those who listen to his tapes to clap, dance, shout, and laugh with him.”

Strove for Connection

Bryan has also illustrated a revised edition of Lorenz Graham’s How God Fix Jonah, which appeared in 2000 in a new edition. Graham’s biblical tales, told in the vernacular of West African English speakers of the 1920s, was originally published in 1946. Beautiful Blackbird, published in 2003, won praise for its simple yet endearing retelling of a Zambian folktale. In it, the birds of the forest cast their vote for most attractive among them, and the darkest one, the blackbird, wins. All wish to be like him, and so he dances and flits about to give them dark flecks on their feathers and tails. Yet Blackbird warns that a little bit of color is not the same as being black, and concluded with a message that a writer for Black Issues Book Review interpreted as, “Don’t strive to be something you’re not. Embrace your own heritage and be yourself. More important, beauty cannot be measured by physical appearance.”

Bryan has explained that the birds that often crop up in his stories are inspired by the beloved collection his father kept so many years ago, and he noted that they are common in many African folktales as well. He still looks for his favorite birds on walks on Little Cranberry Isle, an island off the coast of Maine, where he makes his home, along with 90 other island residents. A puppetmaker and toy collector, he likes to teach classes on occasion. As he told Gold in the American Visions interview, “At every moment, I strive for connection. If you are in the moment, you are stretching out to reach that which you recognize in others. Whether with a child or an adult, I am striving for an exchange. That’s my secret.”

Bryan has said that his early years in a gentler, more community-oriented urban landscape helped to shape his own success, and has stressed his belief that exposure to the arts can indeed shape someone’s life, especially a young one. “The arts are the most important thing for growing people,” he told Gold, “and for creating a citizenry for whom you don’t have to make a jail.”

Selected writings

The Ox of the Wonderful Horns and Other African Folktales, Atheneum, 1971, 1993.

The Adventures of Aku; or, How It Came about That We Shall Always See Okra the Cat Lying on a Velvet Cushion While Okraman the Dog Sleeps among the Ashes, Atheneum, 1976.

The Dancing Granny, Macmillan, 1977.

Beat the Story-Drum, Pum-Pum (Nigerian folk tales), Atheneum, 1980.

The Cat’s Drum, Atheneum, 1985.

Lion and the Ostrich Chicks and Other African Folk Tales, Atheneum, 1986.

Sh-Ko and His Eight Wicked Brothers, illustrated by Fumio Yoshimura, Atheneum, 1988.

All Night, All Day, Atheneum, 1988.

Turtle Knows Your Name (a retelling), Atheneum, 1989, Aladdin Books, Maxwell Macmillan Canada, Maxwell Macmillan International, 1993.

Sing to the Sun, HarperCollins, 1992.

The Story of Lightning and Thunder, Atheneum, 1993.

(Illustrator) Giovanni, Nikki, The Sun Is So Quiet, Holt, 1996.

Ashley Bryan’s ABC of African American Poetry, Atheneum, 1997.

(Illustrator) Swann, Brian, The House with No Door: African Riddle-Poems, Harcourt/Browndeer, 1998.