Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave »

Laban Carrick Hill is the author of more than thirty books, including the 2004 National Book Award Finalist Harlem Stomp!, a book he researched for nearly a decade, and America Dreaming, which examines the legacy of the 1960s. He has taught writing at Columbia University, Baruch College, and St. Michael's College and is currently teaching at the Solstice MFA in Creative Writing Program at Pine Manor College in Massachusetts. He is also the cofounder and codirector of the Writers Project of Ghana, based in the US and Ghana.

Bryan Collier began painting at the age of fifteen and earned a B.F.A. with honors from the Pratt Institute in New York. He is the illustrator of over 10 picture books, including Martin's Big Words and Rosa (both Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King Award winners) and Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope, a New York Times bestseller. Mr. Collier lives in Harlem, where he directs mural programs throughout the city for any child who wants to paint.

To us it is just dirt,
the ground we walk on...
But to Dave it was clay,
the plain and basic stuff upon which he formed a life as a slave nearly 200 years ago.

Dave was an extraordinary artist, poet, and potter living in South Carolina in the 1800s. He combined his superb artistry with deeply observant poetry, carved onto his pots, transcending the limitations he faced as a slave. In this inspiring and lyrical portrayal, National Book Award nominee Laban Carrick Hill's elegantly simple text and award-winning artist Bryan Collier's resplendent, earth-toned illustrations tell Dave's story, a story rich in history, hope, and long-lasting beauty.

The New York Times - Tony Horwitz

This extraordinary life deserves wide attention. And, fittingly for a book about an artist, Dave the Potter is beautifully designed and illustrated…[Collier's] work is bold and textured, like Dave's, vividly capturing the earthiness of the potter's craft and the verdant South Carolina landscape outside Dave's workshop. With beautiful economy, Collier also evokes the broader world of slavery by including background glimpses of teetering shanties, rows of cotton, stooped field hands and the corner of a columned mansion.