By and By: Charles Albert Tindley, the Father of Gospel Music

A stirring picture book biography from award-winning duo Carole Boston Weatherford and Bryan Collier, about gospel composer and preacher Charles Albert Tindley, best known for the gospel hymn "We'll Understand It Better By and By."

At a time when most African Americans were still enslaved, Charles Tindley was born free. His childhood was far from easy, with backbreaking hours in the fields, and no opportunity to go to school. But the spirituals he heard as he worked made him long to know how to read the Gospel for himself. Late at night, he taught himself to read from scraps of newspapers. From those small scraps, young Charles raised himself to become a founding father of American gospel music whose hymn was the basis for the Civil Rights anthem "We Shall Overcome."

Told in lilting verse with snippets of spirituals and Tindley's own hymns woven throughout, Carole Boston Weatherford's lyrical words and Bryan Collier's luminous pictures celebrate a man whose music and conviction has inspired countless lives.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 01/14/2020
ISBN: 9781534426368
Pages: 48
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 12.10h x 9.00w x 0.50d

Review Citations: Booklist 11/15/2019 pg. 50
Publishers Weekly 11/18/2019
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 12/01/2019
Kirkus Reviews 12/01/2019
School Library Journal 01/01/2020 pg. 95
Horn Book Magazine 01/01/2020 pg. 112

Accelerated Reader Quiz #/Name: 508586 / By and By: Charles Albert Tindley, the Father of Gospel Music
Reading Level: 3.7 / Interest Level: Lower Grade / Point Value: 0.5