Home
Afro Sexual Health
African American Books | African American
Authors | African American History
From Publishers Weekly Folksinger, musician and
storyteller Seeger first told this story-song to his children over 20 years
ago and has now written it as a book. It's based on a South African lullaby
and folksong, yet it's too rollicking and exciting to lull a child to sleep.
A ukulele-playing boy and his magician father are always getting into
mischief, so they are banished to the edge of their town. There they have an
opportunity to redeem themselves when Abiyoyo, a horrible, people-eating
giant approaches the village. The story is so lyrical that Seeger's voice
can be heard on every page. Hays, in his first picture book, creates a
beautiful multicultural village. His sea of many-colored faces and costumes
is exhilarating and expressive. The giant Abiyoyo is massive and
jagged-toothed, but childlike and non threatening. The book is a triumph of
storytelling and art. From School Library
Journal Kindergarten-Grade 3 The words
in this story-song flow along with the same ease and naturalness as Seeger's
well-known telling on the recording, Abiyoyo and Other Story Songs
(Folkways, 1967). There are only minor changes in this version, and the
style reflects an oral rather than a literary tradition as Seeger switches
from past to present tense in the text. Seeger combines his sense of humor
and drama to turn disturbing events to high-spirited fun, as a father and
son, turned out by their neighbors as troublemakers, use the very objects
that bother people the boy's clinking-clonking ukelele and the father's
magic wand to obliviate Abiyoyo, monster on the loose, and so come back into
community favor. The tale contains levels of meaning and powerful metaphors
for those who choose to pursue them. If Hays' oil-on-linen illustrations are
not always successful, it may be that they seem too studied when matched
with Seeger's spontaneous, colloquial style. For example, the father is a
magician in the simplest sense, yet Hays renders a "magic shop" in the
background, with doves, rabbits, silk hats not the stuff of most folk tales.
In peopling the village, too, he seems to be laboring to make a global
statement, surrounding the black boy and his father with people of all
races, places, beliefs. His Abiyoyo is a shadowy, looming figure against the
blood-red sky, at first a faceless force, growing larger, and finally a
towering glaring figure full of terrible witless energy. What is surprising
about this Abiyoyo is the lack of earthiness. He is not sinew and muscle,
but an automaton with a metallic gleam, the huge overalls he wears seeming
an incongruous folksy touch. Still, there are also some very fine
illustrations here, and this is a book worthy of attention. It merits a wide
audience. Susan Powers, Berkeley Carroll Street School, Brooklyn Review Publishers Weekly The
book is a triumph of storytelling and art.Book Description
No one wants to hear the little boy play his
ukelele anymore...Clink, clunk, clonk. And no one wants to watch his
father make things disappear...Zoop! Zoop!
Until the day the fearsome giant Abiyoyo
suddenly appears in town, and all the townspeople run for their lives and
the lives of their children! Nothing can stop the terrible giant Abiyoyo,
nothing, that is, except the enchanting sound of the ukelele and the
mysterious power of the magic wand. Ingram A brightly illustrated
rendition of the song by the popular folksinger chronicles the adventures of
a young boy, his magician father, and their battle with the fearsome monster
Abiyoyo. Reprint. Reading Rainbow. K. About the Author Pete Seeger has been a
storyteller for fifty years and has written such songs as "Where Have All
the Flowers Gone," "Turn, Turn, Turn," and, with Lee Hays, "If I Had a
Hammer." Pete still lives with his wife, Toshi, near Beacon, New York.
Return Home
08/13/03
