Any Baldwin-esque “literary figures” moonlighting in adopted genres who wished to write a “story of childhood for adults” should do that, according to Lester, but rather in the form of an adult novel-something akin to Baldwin’s own first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain. Children’s literature was a “genre unto itself” and required, in Lester’s estimation, its own prescribed vision. The Black American scholar and children’s book writer, Julius Lester, found its hybrid perspective “unclear,” and deemed the book “slight” and “not especially exciting” in a review for The New York Times. The book, however, was not well-received upon publication. Described on its jacket cover as a “child’s story for adults,” the book drew on Baldwin’s own difficult experiences growing up as a Black boy in Harlem, though it was written partly at the request of another young, Black, New York City “little man.” Baldwin’s nephew, Tejan, would often ask his famous uncle when he would ever write a book about him, to which Baldwin responded in the form of the story’s four-year-old protagonist, TJ. In 1976, James Baldwin published his first and only children’s book, Little Man, Little Man: A Story of Childhood-a collaboration with French artist and illustrator Yoran Cazac.
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