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Ajeemah and His Son
by James Berry

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From Publishers Weekly
     With its very first line--"That wiping out of Atu and Sisi's wedding was always going to be one of the painful happenings"--this poignant narrative takes on the age-old voice of a folktale. On their way to present a dowry of gold to Sisi's parents, Ajeemah and his son Atu, the groom-to-be, are kidnapped, sold to slave traders and taken to Jamaica, where they are sold to different white estate-owners. From the onset of their new lives, both Ajeemah and Atu are determined not only to escape but to wreak revenge upon the slaveholders as well. Despite the similarity of their plans, father and son end up with quite different fates. This tale, though brief, is packed with details of a slave's frustrating and demeaning life; for the most part, Berry's ( A Thief in His Village ) prose incorporates this information seamlessly. Occasionally, however, the novel's overall simplicity is vitiated by sentences, as well as snippets of dialogue, that would seem more at home in a textbook. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal
     Grade 6 Up-- On their way to arrange 18-year-old Atu's wedding in 1807, the young man and his father, Ajeemah, are captured by slave traders and shipped in chains from their African village to the sugar-cane plantations of Jamaica. They are separated--Ajeemah to work in a leather shop on one estate and Atu as a field hand on another. Ajeemah plots to rebel, but is be trayed. Atu commits suicide in despair when a horse that he has bought and cared for is taken from him. Ajeemah nearly goes mad with a vision of his son's death, until a Jamaican-born slave woman nurses him back to health. The two marry and survive to see their daughter marry in freedom. Told in a matter-of-fact manner, this historical novel has the realism, tone, and poignancy of a family story, poetic in its very spareness. Berry contrasts the men's fluid expression in their native language with their halting ``plantation English,'' and he beautifully captures the roots of the Caribbean dialect. Writing from an African perspective, the author conveys the differences between those slaves born in the New World and those brought from Africa; while his wife dreams of buying her freedom, Ajeemah refuses to pay money for that which was his by birth. Readers will comprehend the enormous grief experi enced by Ajeemah and Atu, but they will come away with a new sense of respect for those who maintained their dignity and humanity under the cruelest of circumstances. --Lyn Miller- Lachmann, Siena College Library, Loudonville, NY
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description
     In 1807, at the height of the slave trade, Ajeemah and his son, Atu, are snatched by slave traders from their home in Africa while en route to deliver a dowry to Atu's bride-to-be.Ajeemah and Atu are then taken to Jamaica and sold to neighboring plantations' never to see one another again. "Readers will come away with a new sense of respect for those who maintained their dignity and humanity under the cruelest of circumstances. "'SLJ. "Each moment here of the Jamaican-born poet's terse, melodious narrative is laden with emotion. . . . Brilliant, complex, powerfully written."––K.

     Notable Children's Book of 1993 (ALA)
     1993 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA)
     1993 Fanfare Honor List (The Horn Book)
     1992 Books for Youth Editors' Choices (BL)
     Notable 1992 Children's Trade Books in Social Studies (NCSS/CBC)
     Bulletin Blue Ribbons 1992 (C)

1993 Books for the Teen Age (NY Public Library)
Children's Books of 1992 (Library of Congress)
1993 Boston Globe-Horn Book Fiction Award

Synopsis
     A father and his eighteen-year-old son are each affected differently by their experiences as slaves in Jamaica in the early nineteenth century.

Ingram
     A Coretta Scott King Honor Award-winning author's powerful novel about slavery. In 1807, at the height of the slave trade, Ajeemah and his son, Atu, are snatched by slave traders from their home in Africa. They are taken to Jamaica and sold as slaves--never to see one another again. An ALA Notable Children's Book of 1993; 1993 ALA Best Books for Young Adults; 1993 Boston Globe-Horn Book Fiction Award.

About the Author
     James Berry's collection of short stories, A Thief in the Village, was a 1989 Coretta Scott King Honor book. The distinguished writer and poet was born in Jamaica and now lives in England.
 

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