How Sweet the Sound
The Story of Amazing Grace
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
An incredibly moving picture book biography of the man behind the hymn “Amazing Grace” and the living legacy of the song by New York Times bestselling author Carole Boston Weatherford and award-winning illustrator Frank Morrison.
One stormy night at sea, a wayward man named John Newton feared for his life. In his darkest hour he fell to his knees and prayed—and somehow the battered ship survived the storm.
Grateful, he changed his ways and became a minister, yet he still owned a slave ship. But in time, empathy touched his heart. A changed man, he used his powerful words to help end slavery in England.
Those words became the hymn “Amazing Grace,” a song that has lifted the spirit and given comfort across time and all over the world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Morrison's vibrant, sometimes haunting oil paintings join Weatherford's spare, rhyming couplets to delineate the birth and reach of the famed hymn "Amazing Grace." Dynamic spreads highlight the life of Reverend John Newton, the Englishman who penned the inspirational song in the late 1700s. Originating from Newton's dramatic conversion story (he starts as an embittered sailor serving aboard a slave ship and becomes a minister and antislavery activist), the meaningful song spreads far and wide. "Choirs make the song their own./ Newton's timeless hymn has grown./ Verses added here and there/ Till this song is like a prayer." Verses trace the anthem's use during the Civil War and the abolitionist and civil rights movements. One poignant spread depicts a pregnant African-American slave singing the hymn in a cotton field; she faces a pregnant Cherokee woman on the opposite page, chanting it on the Trail of Tears. The penultimate spread shows Barack Obama singing it at a church-shooting victim's funeral. A reprint of the song's lyrics is included, along with a further reading list and listening suggestions, and an author's note recounts the song's history in prose. Ages 4 8.
