Dream a Dress, Dream a Poem: Dressmaker and Poet, Myra Viola Wilds (a Picture Bo

<b>A poetic picture book biography about blind Black poet Myra Viola Wilds, written by the author of <i>Brown: The Many Shades of Love</i></b> <p/>What dreams do you carry? Myra Viola Wilds dreamed of opportunity. She left her home in rural Kentucky for the city, learned to read and to write, and became a dressmaker. She hand-stitched gorgeous gowns. She worked so hard she lost her eyesight, and her world went dark. But those well-loved stitches turned into words, and one night Myra woke in the middle of the night and wrote a poem she called "Sunshine." She kept writing. She wrote the lush green, sweet-corn yellow, cerulean blue, sunshine-y world from memory, collecting her poems into a book called <i>Thoughts of Idle Hours</i>, published in 1915. <p/>Written in Wilds's style, this lyrical, gorgeously illustrated picture book biography celebrates this little-known poet and includes a biography that provides context to her life--the Great Migration, Jim Crow segregation--as well a photograph and a small selection of her poems.<br><br><b>Author:</b> Nancy Johnson James<br><b>Publisher:</b> Abrams Books for Young Readers<br><b>Published:</b> 01/14/2025<br><b>Pages:</b> 32<br><b>Binding Type:</b> Hardcover<br><b>ISBN:</b> 9781951836535<br><b>Audience:</b> Ages 4-8<br><p><b>About the Author</b><br><b>Nancy Johnson James</b> is a poet and the author of <i>Brown: The Many Shades of Love</i>; <i>Black: The Many Wonders of My World</i>; and <i>Blue: The Many Ways I Feel</i> in The Co