1. My Man Blue Recommendation by Matt Dowdy
Written by Nikki Grimes and illustrated by Jerome Lagarrigue
Recommendation by Matt Dowdy

2. Introduction
The story that I am recommending is titled My Man Blue and is the story of a young boy named Damon who moves and meets a man named Blue. Blue lost a son to the streets and hopes that he can help Damon stay on the right path. Damon accepts Blue’s friendship and is soon close friends with the role model who teaches Damon great lessons in life.

3. Genre
This book can be considered realistic fiction, because it does not explicitly say it is a true story, but it would not be surprising if it were true. It is also written entirely in poems, so the genre of poetry would also be used to describe this story.

4. Literary Elements
Because this book is written in poems, there are quite a bit of literary elements to find in the stories each poem tells. The perspective is all Damon’s, and his voice gives almost all of the plot, supported by pictures. Because the pictures are there to support the poems, there is limited imagery, although there is still some. His Hands, one of the poems in the book, offers a lot of imagery of Blue’s hands. This poem has some of the most imagery of the story, describing in great detail the hands of Damon’s role model. Most poems also offer quite a bit of characterization for different people in the story. The author likes to give insight into each character, and throughout the whole story this can be seen.

5. Artistic Elements
There are plenty of elements that show the artistic work of Jerome Lagarrigue. His work has won him a Coretta Scott King award, and his artistic genius is shown again in this book. The use of color, medium, and even the use of a larger book are just some of the elements he uses. Color is very prevalent in the story, and each page seems to use nearly every color of the spectrum. The medium was acrylic paint on Canson paper, which creates fantastic images and strong defined lines for each object. Lastly, Lagarrigue utilized a larger book to help showcase his great artwork. Each poem isn’t very long, so the larger pages are definitely to display the best quality artwork Lagarrigue could create.

6. Assumption of Childhood
The assumption of Damon is that he is a working child, he says, “in this family, I’m the only man.” This shows that he is contributing to his family and that he is trying to protect his mother. Later he says, “When Mom works late I wait with busy hands...” showing that he is doing something to help around the house when his mother is at her job. He may not be providing financial help, but he is working around the house to help his mom.

7. Response Roles
This book would be a great read for a critical response, because there are many instances of explicit, and some implicit, beliefs about messages and identities. The text displays all the elements of a critical story, such as perspective, message, identity, and ideology. Because it has all these elements, the story would be a great addition to course. The book also has potential to meet other response roles, such as literary and artistic responses, but because it has all the elements necessary for a critical response, it would best be used in such way.

8. Drawbacks
Even though this book would be a great addition to the course, whether it through literary, artistic, or critical response roles, there are ways it may not be perfect for the course. If this were to be put into the course theme, it may be difficult to incorporate it into a larger theme. There are stories like this one, but it may be a bit more challenging to find them. It might also offer less of a challenge for answering the response roles than the current stories. Compared to the stories we read this year, when I read through My Man Blue, it was easier to identify the different elements of response roles. It might be less effective to learn these elements if the book does not offer a challenge when identifying them.

9. Conclusion
Even with certain drawbacks to this book, I am still recommending this book because I think it is a great story and offers so many fantastic things to this class. Literary, artistic, and critical response roles can be found in the book, and is a great example of certain genres and childhood assumptions that our textbook teaches us about. So whether it be a part of those responses, or just used to aid the textbook, I really hope that this book can be used in the future of this course.