Book Description

The cover page collage, Woman and Child Reading: In Tribute to Romare Bearden, was created as a tribute to artist Romare Bearden's own original collage, Woman and Child Reading. When I decided to write my action research paper, I immediately began conducting research on images that would inspire me to develop my own cover image for the paper. Ever since my teenage years, I have been studying the art of Romare Bearden. When I began looking at Bearden's work for inspiration, I came across his masterpiece entitled, Woman and Child Reading. After much reflection, I decided to create my own version of the collage as a tribute to my artistic inspiration, Romare Bearden. In my version of the collage, a woman and her child are physically and mentally bonding through the practice of reading. As depicted in the collage, the mother reads while her child internalizes his mother's words in order to make vivid sense of the written text. The written text connects the mother and child to a greater understanding of their purpose and place in the world. The vivid golden and silver colors in the collage hint to how alive reading, especially with a loved one, can positively affect one's growth and human development. Hence, many research studies have shown that reading at an early age to young children encourages their mental knowledge. The collage I modeled after Romare Bearden's own work is an extension of this very idea.