The Adventures of Fathead, Smallhead, and Squarehead,

by Sonia Sanchez

The adventures of three friends prove that "slow is not always dumb, and fast is not always smart."

29 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Sonia Sanchez was born Wilsonia Benita Driver on September 9, 1934, in Birmingham, Alabama. After her mother died in childbirth a year later, Sanchez lived with her paternal grandmother and other relatives for several years. In 1943, she moved to Harlem with her sister to live with their father and his third wife.

She earned a B.A. in political science from Hunter College in 1955. She also did postgraduate work at New York University and studied poetry with Louise Bogan. Sanchez formed a writers' workshop in Greenwich Village, attended by such poets as Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), Haki R. Madhubuti (Don L. Lee), and Larry Neal. Along with Madhubuti, Nikki Giovanni, and Etheridge Knight, she formed the "Broadside Quartet" of young poets, introduced and promoted by Dudley Randall.

Reviews

[Cara Byrne · Rating 3 out of 5]

“When the morning came, erasing the darkness, pouring her pale light over the land, Fathead greeted the morning with a prayer and slowly continued his journey to Mecca.” This is a really intriguing part of Sanchez's canon, though it's not a very successful children's picture book.