It Jes’ Happened (Christie)

This inspiring biography tells the story of Bill Traylor, a self-taught artist and former slave who, at the age of eighty-five, began drawing from his memories and observations of rural and urban life in Alabama. As a child, Bill worked on an Alabama cotton farm, first as an enslaved boy and later as a sharecropper, where he raised his family and cared for the land and animals. By 1935, at age eighty-one, Bill was alone and moved to Montgomery, Alabama. There, his memories of life on the farm blossomed into drawings of people, animals, and scenes from the city around him. Today, Bill Traylor is celebrated as one of the most important self-taught American folk artists, with over 1,200 vibrant and often humorous works. It Jes’ Happened, a winner of Lee & Low’s New Voices Award Honor, is a lively tribute to this remarkable artist who enriched the world with his unique vision.