Bright April

We now have two paperback editions of Bright April, one with eight full color illustrations and one where those are black and white. The author's numerous black and white sketches are in both editions. Like the month she was born in and named after, April was bright one moment and dark the next. But mostly she was Bright April—because of her happy family, her Brownie Scout troop, and all her friends in the Philadelphia suburb where she lived. This is April’s story. It is especially the story of her tenth birthday, which brought the best surprise she could have ever imagined. Marguerite de Angeli has made the life of a specific cultural group as real and warm as a next-door neighbor’s. Most of all, as always, she has made a picture story book that is fun to read. Believing that all children are basically the same, no matter what their national origin, de Angeli broke literary ground by writing of an African-American family and racial prejudice in her book Bright April (1946). The favorite childhood book of Dr. Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress. From Publishers Weekly: Hayden recalled the transformative moment when, at age seven in Jamaica, Queens, she was given a copy of Marguerite de Angeli’s picture book Bright April by a local librarian. “That was the first time I saw myself—a brown girl—in a book.” She also mentioned Bright April in her outstanding interview on CBS Sunday Morning on June 8, 2025. *Worldwide titles: These titles may take up to 1-2 weeks to ship, or longer in November and December. Read why here.