Independent Reflection 2- Radiant Child by Javaka Steptoe

Radiant Child is about the life of Jean-Michel Basquiat. He was a Haitian and Pureto

Rican artist. He lived in a trilingual home in Brooklyn, filled with culture. Jean-Michel had

always wanted to be an artist and drew pictures all the time. His father enjoyed art and music, but

his mother had a passion for it. She would sit with him to draw and take him to art museums. She

was the one who taught Jean-Michel that art is all around. She was diagnosed with a severe

mental illness and has to live in a care facility for the rest of her life when Jean-Michel is still a

child. He grew up and moved to New York City, where he painted under the pen name “Samo”.

His art took off and he became a famous abstract artist. He visited his mother often and honored

her in every painting with a crown symbol.

This book is a wonderful book for many reasons. First, it describes the life of a person of

color who did something great. It is not a story about a person of color who is a slave, or in jail.

It is the story of a young man of color who made his way in the world and achieved his dreams.

He is celebrated in this story. We get to see different cultures that many people normally would

not see. While artists like Jackson Pollock and Van Gogh are often talked about and celebrated;

we don’t often hear about famous artists of color from the past. This is a great and engaging story

that is well written and well illustrated that introduces students to a diverse member of the artistic

world.

This book would be a great book to introduce students to biographies and

autobiographies. You could introduce the lesson by having students partner up and tell each other

about themselves. Then, each partner would write a short biography about their partner to share

with the class. You could end the lesson with students writing their own autobiographies. It is

also a story about dreams and inspiration. Students could write pieces about their dreams and
what inspires them. They can talk about family, friends, art, or anything that inspires them to

follow their dreams. This story does deal with some hard topics like mental illness and car

accidents, but it also shows how to get through those things. If you knew your students and felt

comfortable giving a tougher assignment, they could write about times where they were facing a

great struggle, or when something terrible happened to them or their family. They could talk

about how they got through it, what helped and what did not help, and the actual event itself.

This book allows for several different types of narrative stories for students and introduces them

to the concept of an autobiography, an important writing vocabulary term.

Radiant Child is not only a diverse piece of writing written by a diverse author, it is also

interesting and engaging and acts as an important mentor text. It can be taken and warped into

many different lessons on narrative writing, deep writing, and what inspiration really means to

students. This would be a great book to read in a writing workshop or class.