Book - Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library

By Carole Boston Weatherford, illustration by Eric Velasquez

In luminous paintings and arresting poems illuminate Arturo Schomburg’s remarkable quest to correct history. His vast collection overflowed his house before he turned it over to the New York Public Library. It is now the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem.

Ages 8-12. Softcover. 10X12”, 48 pp., 2019.

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Through text and art, Weatherford and Velasquez craft a winning portrait of both collector and his collection...Schomburg’s collection was donated to the New York Public Library and now boasts over 10 million items. This excellent work of history illuminates Schomburg and his legendary collection for a new generation—it belongs in all public and school libraries.
–School Library Journal (starred review)

With great respect to the man's riveting life story, Caldecott and Coretta Scott King Honors author Carole Boston Weatherford relates through narrative poetry the story of Afro-Puerto Rican immigrant Arturo Schomburg. While each poem in Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library can stand alone as a single snapshot in the literary life of Schomburg, Weatherford's portrayal of the bibliophilic law clerk is so wondrous, readers won't be able to resist turning the pages to learn more.
–Shelf Awareness for Readers (starred review)

Velasquez’s richly detailed oil paintings aptly capture Schomburg’s zeal for learning and for teaching others...A must-read about a bibliophile extraordinaire.
–Horn Book