Bright April (OCLC 8739451) is a 1946 children's story book written and illustrated by Marguerite de Angeli, who later won the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature for another book, 1950's The Door in the Wall. Bright April is a story about a young African-American girl named April who experiences racial prejudice; it is also the story of her bright personality and her tenth birthday and the surprise it brought. The story is set in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the scenery portrayed in the author's illustrations can be recognized even today.
Bright April was the first children’s book to address the divisive issue of racial prejudice, a daring topic for a children's book of that time. Selected digital images of this book are available here.
Famous quotes containing the words bright and/or april:
“To recover a buried treasure without having it disappear miraculously in the process, one must be entitled to it, and also be willing—really willing deep in his heart—to share it with the poor and helpless. Buried money, especially silver, gives off a bright glow which comes right up through the earth and can be seen as a dim light on nights when the weather is misty or there is a gentle rain.”
—Administration in the State of Ariz, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)