NCTE Award Winning Poet - Meet Danitra Brown

1. Bibliographic Citation

Grimes, Nikki. 1994. Meet Danitra Brown.  New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard. ISBN 9780688120733

 2. Summary and Review
Meet Danitra Brown is a compilation of poems about a little girl named Danitra written from the point of view of her best friend, Zuri. Danitra is an outgoing, caring, free-spirit who only wears purple clothes and big bifocal glasses that she is very proud of. This collection of rhyming poems tells the story of the friendship between Zuri and Danitra including poems about jumping rope, riding bikes, chores, helping each other with problems, and even a small tiff when Zuri accidently spills a secret about Danitra. This portrait of friendship is relatable to all children, not just girls, and could be used to teach character lessons such as building self-esteem. The poems, themselves, are well written and, together, form a snapshot of the unbreakable friendship between the two girls. Floyd Cooper’s soft brown and purple illustrations compliment Grimes’s poems nicely. The first poem in the book, “You Oughta Meet Danitra Brown” introduces us to Danitra:

You Oughta Meet Danitra Brown

You oughta meet Danitra Brown,
the most splendiferous girl in town.
I oughta know, ‘cause she’s my friend.

She’s not afraid to take a dare.
If something’s hard, she doesn’t care.
She’ll try her best, no matter what.

She doesn’t mind what people say.
She always does things her own way.
Her spirit’s old, my mom once said.

I only know I like her best
‘cause she sticks out from all the rest.
She’s only she – Danitra Brown.

3. Awards/Reviews
*Coretta Scott King Book Award 1995
*ALSC Notable Children’s Books 1995
*Positive Reviews in Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, and Children’s Literature

4. Activities
Students could read this book as inspiration to write their own poems about their best friends. Counselors could use this book as a springboard to get students talking about difficult issues such as bullying or living in single parent homes.

5. Related Books
*Danitra Brown Leaves Town and Danitra Brown, Class Clown both by Nikki Grimes ISBN 9780688131557
*A Pocketful of Poems by Nikki Grimes 9780395938683
*Make Way for Dyamonde Daniel by Nikki Grimes ISBN 9780142415559