Children spend a lot of time and energy learning to read. The Oldest Student: How Mary Walker Learned to Read acknowledges that effort and reminds us what a treasure literacy is.

Rita Lorraine Hubbard has written this beautiful tribute to Mary Walker. Mary, as she’s called in the book, was born into enslavement. The author’s note acknowledges that Hubbard had to imagine the conditions of her enslavement since no records remain. When Mary was fifteen years old, the Civil War ended, and she and her family began sharecropping and finding other ways to provide for themselves. In the crush of work, Mary never learned to read.

After her husband and all three of her sons had passed away, when Mary was 114 years old, she joined a reading class in her retirement class. Just like the children this book is written for, “She studied the alphabet until her eyes watered. She memorized the sounds each letter made and practiced writing her name so many times that her fingers cramped. She learned to recognize ‘sight words’ and then challenged herself to make short sentences with them.”

And Mary learned how to read!

I loved Oge Mora’s collage art in the book. She subtly includes print elements in almost every illustration, reminding the reader how much of our world is made up of things that need to be read. I especially loved the page where Mary is leaving her children at home while she goes out to work, and the ground she’s walking on is composed of pieces from a sewing pattern. Even the kind of work that Mary had to do to make ends meet was made more difficult because she couldn’t read.

And then, in the triumphant illustration where people are celebrating Mary’s newfound ability to read, the dress Oge Mora puts her in is composed of type. It’s a lovely and moving moment.

An inspiring book that celebrates literacy!

The Oldest Student: How Mary Walker Learned to Read by Rita Lorraine Hubbard, illustrated by Oge Mora. (Schwartz & Wade: 2020).