Meet Claudie

Author: Brit Bennett

Illustrator: Laura Freeman

Publication Date: 2022

Plot

Nine-year-old Claudie Wells loves living in 1920s Harlem, New York, but she feels out of place. It seems everyone else has some sort of artistic talent, from dance to painting to poetry to the culinary arts. Claudie hasn't found her talent yet. Her father, a veteran of the Great War in the Harlem Hellfighters, reassures her that when started baking, his creations both looked and tasted terrible, but he practiced and now his beautiful cakes are famous in the neighborhood. But Claudie still feels like she doesn't belong, especially after her mother, a reporter for the Amderstam News, doesn't want Claudie coming on a trip to her mother's childhood home in Georgia. Claudie figures her mother views Claudie as a bother.

Still, Claudie is determined that this summer will be summer she finds a talent. She talks to many artists she knows in the neighborhood, learning about what fuels their passions and why they've followed the paths they have. And while she is enjoying learning about everyone, there's sometimes an unsettling undercurrent. People talk about leaving places where they weren't welcome due to the color of their skin, her father has nightmares about his time in the war and also laments the racism he and other veterans received upon returning home to America, her mother is writing an article about a lynching, the woman who runs the boarding house where her family lives is facing eviction... Suddenly, there are bigger problems than Claudie wanting to find her talent.

Pondering the problems one night, Claudie hits on the idea to coordinate a variety show and charge money for tickets. The money will make up the back rent the boarding house owes, and let Claudie and everyone else stay. Just as I was thinking Claudie's talent was going to be organizing things like Samantha, one of the other tenants says she'll only help if Claudie performs too--why not a puppet show like Claudie puts on for her little brother? But what to write about...

It's in talking to her mother that Claudie figures it out: she's going to accompany her on the trip to Georgia and find something to inspire her.

Inside Claudie's World

The historical retrospective talks about the Harlem Renaissance, and how it happened against the backdrop of numerous racist atrocities like lynchings. Harlem was, for some, a refuge from the danger that lurked in other parts of the country. But even there, there was segregation--Claudie and her brother attend a baseball game, but this is well before Jackie Robinson's time, so the league are separated by race. The progress in Harlem helped people believe more progress was possible. 

Misc

Bennett dedicates the book to all her "teachers who encouraged me to love books." There's also a forward that details how Bennett grew up loving reading, including the Addy books, and how she looked up to the author, Connie Porter, and even got to speak with Porter over the phone.

Advisors for the book include Keisha N. Blain, an author who teaches at the University of Pittsburgh (the field isn't specified); Marcia Chatelain, author and professor of history and African American studies at Georgetown University; Spencer R. Crew, the Clarence J. Robinson Professor of History at George Mason University, president of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and director of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian; Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, an author and the Victor S. Thomas Processor of History and of African and African American students at Harvard; and Shannon King, author and associate professor of history at Fairfield University.

Just before the first page of the book, there's a note that the dialogue is period-accurate and thus uses now-outdated terms like "colored" and "Negro" to refer to Black people, and explains that while they wouldn't be used in most places today, they would have been used in Claudie's time and location.

It's 1922, and the narration implies that people are already calling the Great War "World War I." That didn't happen for a bit, until World War II, outside of a memoir by English soldier Charles a Court Repington.

I like this sentiment: "[Claudie] knew that a friend offering to teach you something she loved was offering you a special gift."