Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
This widely lauded anthology boasts stunning black-and-white artwork and stirringly told stories with such evocative titles as ``The Beautiful Girl of the Moon Tower'' and ``Wiley, His Mama, and the Hairy Man.'' All ages. (Feb.)
School Library Journal
Gr 4-7 The well-known author here retells 24 black American folk tales in sure storytelling voice. In four groupings she presents seven animal tales (including a tar-baby variant); six fanciful ones (including ``Wiley, His Mama, and the Hairy Man'' and a tale of which Harper's Gunniwulf Dutton, 1967 is a variant); five supernatural tales (including variants of the Tailypo, John and the Deviland a wild cautionary tale, ``Little Eight John''); and finally, six slave tales of freedom, closing with the moving title story. Depending on the sources, some of the tales use a modified dialect for flavor; one told with quite a few words of Gullah dialect has a glossary. All are beautifully readable. The book has a bibliography, and comments follow each tale, including one personal note of a family account involving one of her grandfathers. Two other collections of black folk tales, Courlander's Terrapin's Pot of Sense (Holt, 1957; o.p.) and Faulkner's The Days When the Animals Talked (Follett, 1977; o.p.) are both out of print. With the added attraction of 40 bordered full- and half-page illustrations by the Dillonswonderfully expressive paintings reproduced in black and whitethis collection should be snapped up. Ruth M. McConnell, San Antonio Public Library
Leo and Diane Dillon illustrate this beautiful collection of American black folktales, which comes with a compact disc narrated by James Earl Jones and Hamilton. Parents will want to use The People Could Fly as a readaloud themselves: it provides over twenty folktales for all ages and this reprint with its new cd will appeal to new audiences.
FEB/MAR 05 - AudioFile
As performed by Andrew Barnes, this prize-winning text, compiled by the illustrious Virginia Hamilton, is a gem. The only discordant notes in the four hours are banjo, fiddle, and harmonica playing that are more Appalachian than black vernacular music. This transcendent audio work entertains a multiplicity of generations and races. It enables us to understand the ways a people survived slavery and the racism that followed, continued folkways, and maintained their sense of the ridiculous in the face of unbearable oppression. These stories, however, are not about race. They are about the triumph of the human spirit against all odds. P.R. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine
