DURING THIS, BLACK HISTORY MONTH, I’ve intentionally read books about slavery, Black people and the Black experience. It’s important to me that I widen my knowledge and understanding. Many of the stories are heartbreaking, almost unbelievable in the mental and physical cruelty inflicted upon Blacks. This is hard stuff to read. But it is in the hard stuff that we begin to fully comprehend the importance of empathy, kindness, compassion and the need to stand strong against that which is hateful, hurtful and oppressive.
This week, though, I read a Black-focused book which inspired and uplifted me. It’s a children’s picture book, Everywhere Beauty Is Harlem: The Vision of Photographer Roy Decarava. The book, written by Gary Golio and illustrated by E.B. Lewis, won the 2025 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Award.
This book resonates with me personally and professionally in telling the story of 1940s world famous photographer Roy DeCarava, unknown to me until I read this book. Trained in the arts and in photography, he would go on to photograph everyday life in his native Harlem via work for the Works Progress Administration Project, fellowships and more. He worked as a photographer for major publications, has/had his photos featured in exhibits and art museums, became an art professor… And he was Black.
But what I love most about this story is that DeCarava aimed to photograph everyday life, everyday scenes, everyday people in the streets of Harlem. He shows life in raw reality. He worked back in the days of film, admittedly much more challenging than shooting with a digital camera. I started with film, too. You often get only one chance to take a photo. No firing off shots. No digital manipulation. Just a single, unedited print.
I will never match the talent of DeCarava. But I do share his focus. I also aim to photograph the ordinary, the everyday, right where I live (or mostly in southern Minnesota). Like him, I notice details. The light. The moments. The expressions. The people, scenes, settings and events that define a place. The anything that might make for an interesting photo.
Unlike DeCarava, my roots are rural. I’ve only ever been to New York City once, while in college. I was awed by the skyscrapers, the street vendors, Chinatown and men hurrying along Wall Street in leisure suits. (This was in 1977.) But I have no desire to return to a place that feels too closed in, too busy, too chaotic.
Yet, Harlem in Upper Manhattan was DeCarava’s home, where he found the subjects of his photos. Everywhere Beauty Is Harlem gives a snapshot of the images this photographer snapped. A man on the subway. A boy drawing on the sidewalk with chalk. Black and brown children dancing in water spraying from a fire hydrant.
Beyond the visuals, the story in this children’s picture book encompasses the essence of DeCarava’s photographic focus on the everyday and the ordinary. I really ought to buy a copy of this book for my personal library. If you want to understand my photographic work, then read this multi award-winning children’s picture book. But, more importantly, read this book to learn about a world famous Black photographer whose talent for visual storytelling is a gift to all of us. To see the world through his eyes presents life as it is. Real. Raw. Unedited.
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FYI: I encourage you to also check out the photography of New York City photographer Keith Goldstein, whose work I follow on his blog, “For Earth Below.” His street photography has opened my eyes to humanity in a way that I never see here in southern Minnesota. His talent is remarkable. Goldstein, I think, works much like Roy DeCarava did, with his camera focused on the everyday, the ordinary. And therein both have found the extraordinary.
© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
An essay inspired by books in a sharing library February 19, 2025
Tags: book titles, books, commentary, essay, Minnesota, opinion, Pine River, sharing library
IF I WAS A REBEL, and I’m not (although a streak of defiance runs through my veins), I’d write a strongly opinionated piece on a controversial topic.
But I don’t like conflict. I prefer status quo to chaos, normalcy to the unexpected. Yet, that is not reality. Life can be easy and hard and good and awful and a whole mix of everything. Sort of like Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School. I like school. Never liked math.
Nor do I particularly like William Shakespeare’s work with the exception of Romeo and Juliet. Who doesn’t love a love story, even if tragic? Shakespeare’s other writing seems archaic, boring and impossibly unrelatable. I offer no apologies for that view.
I am decidedly a fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder, who certainly has her critics, too. But her detail-rich writing in Little House in the Big Woods, On the Banks of Plum Creek, Little Town on the Prairie and more inspires me as a writer. Plus, I grew up some 25 miles from Walnut Grove, smack dab in the middle of the Minnesota prairie. When you live in a land of wide open spaces, big skies and sweeping winds, you approach writing from a detailed perspective that engages all the senses.
I can’t make much sense of sweeping Absolute Power, which has nothing to do with the senses. Not common sense anyway. Common sense tells me Spider Man is not real. Nor are heroes of the Justice League. Yet, I’d like to call in Superman, Wonder Woman and other superheroes to tackle the threats facing us today, and save the day.
Or perhaps strong-willed orphan Sally Lockhart of The Ruby in the Smoke could clear the smoke obscuring vision. Her experiences dealing with unseemly types qualifies her, in my opinion, to take on anything. Like uncovering lies, aggression, narcissism, manipulation and diversionary tactics. I appoint her to abolish the Department of Government E, or something like that, for starters.
Yes, there’s lots to contemplate. But today I’ve escaped to the sharing library, visually pulled a few books from the shelf to create this essay. And if nothing I’ve written resonates with you, then consider Lunkers Love Nightcrawlers. Head to the lake with a container of nightcrawlers, drop your baited line in the open water or drill a hole in the ice. Fish for answers. Good luck.
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NOTE: I’ve underlined the titles of books from the sharing library which I’ve incorporated into this essay. This essay is not the piece I wrote for the contest I referenced here last week.
© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling