Celebrating Historical Fiction: FINDING LANGSTON Earns 2019 Scott O’Dell Award

I’m in the process of reading each of the winners of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction and sharing something I learn about the craft of writing historical fiction and something I learn about history. I’ve collected my previous articles about the award winners on a separate page of this website.

I just read the 2019 winner, Finding Langston by Lesa Cline-Ransome. This is such an appropriate month to talk about this middle grade novel because it features poetry, and April is also National Poetry Month.

In Finding Langston, young Langston and his father are recent newcomers to 1946 Chicago from Alabama and are grieving the death of Langston’s mother. Langston also misses Alabama rural life, tries to avoid the bullies at school, and is at a loss how to talk with his father.

He finds unexpected refuge in a nearby library—unexpected because he’s not barred from it because of his skin color—and the poems of another Langston.

Writing lesson:

Appeals to young boy readers—Although this book will appeal to both boys and girls, I believe it will especially appeal to boys ages nine through twelve who may struggle to sit and read a book.

First, the novel is short, only about 100 pages. Second, it’s written in present tense and moves quickly. Third, it’s written in first person point-of-view, so the reader lives through Langston’s thoughts, emotions, and experiences. Fourth, Cline-Ransome keeps the time period and setting details to a minimum.

All these craft choices by Cline-Ransome culminates in a book that will grab those young readers who might be new readers of historical fiction who might otherwise feel bogged down in details or who’d rather be doing other things besides reading a novel.

In addition, although Finding Langston deals with themes of poverty and racial discrimination and inequality, it also speaks to universal emotions of loss, loneliness, and tensions in family relationships, and finding hope in expressing those feelings.

History lesson:

Langston Hughes—I know very little about poetry, and even less about Hughes. I appreciated how Cline-Ransome sprinkled in a few details about Hughes but always focused on the connection between her main character, Langston, and how he felt reading Hughes’ poetry.

Hughes was born in 1902. As a child and young man, he lived with various family members in a variety of towns. He traveled widely and held many jobs. Yet, his first book of poetry was published when he was only about 24 years old, even before he had earned his college degree.

Hughes was known as a poet and novelist who spoke for and to his readers—average, working-class black Americans. He also became known for his part in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.

To read more about Hughes:

Langston Hughes (Poetry Foundation)

Langston Hughes (Academy of American Poets)

Langston Hughes (America’s Story from America’s Library)

For more info about Cline-Ransome:

Lesa Cline-Ransome

Have you read any of Hughes’s works? If so, what’s your favorite piece? What other children’s historical fiction make good introductions of the genre to a very young audience?