Richard Samuel Roberts, a self-trained studio photographer, was known around Columbia, South Carolina, for his distinguished photographs of the African-American citizenry in the 1920s and 1930s. In addition to weddings, graduations, and family portraits, he photographed baseball teams, magicians, school children, and musicians. Whatever the occasion, the people captured in these photos taken by Mr. Roberts look serious, hopeful and, above all, proud. Dinah Johnson has skillfully arranged the images so that young readers will see them not as a random assortment of old photos, but as one man's life work and legacy. Her brief accompanying text encourages children to study these mostly anonymous faces and to wonder who they were and what their lives were like. Like an old family photo album, this is a book we want to return to again and again. (Ages 4-12)

This special picture book offers a window into the African American community of Columbia, South Carolina, during the early twentieth century. While the town is specific, the themes and photographs are universal--weddings and funerals, teachers and preachers, sassy cars and baseball teams, and, of course, families of all sizes. More than half a century later, Richard Samuel Roberts's photographs and Dinah Johnson's lyrical text come together to illustrate the pride, joy, and strength of a bustling community.