Grab Your Edition The People Could Fly: The Picture Book Formulated By Virginia Hamilton Disseminated As Volume

was one of the stories from the list "children's book to read before you grow up", If you are accustomed to more traditional sentence structure, you're going to find this book difficult to read correctly, A lot of sentences in the book start with the word "Say" and just feel awkward to read,

If you try it and find it awkward, I would suggest listening to the performance of the book by James Earl Jones instead while following along with the book.
I just couldn't read it without correcting the grammar and then it loses all of the magic, Seriously, just listen to James Earl Jones read it,

Most books you can just read, But, just reading this one takes away a lot from it, This one needs to be performed, I'm not saying that because it is African Folk tales either, There are several things like that, Some of Mark Twain's short stories also really are better performed rather than just read,

My rating is,listening to James Earl Jones read it andtrying to read it out loud yourself, So glad this came with the recording, For me, I really loved this story, Why Well, after I read this folktale, it taught a lesson that means a lot, It taught that even though you are going through the worst conditions, always have hope,
As we have seen, the story “The People Could Fly” is a folktale, due to the fact that it meets all the requirements it must contain to be a folktale.
First of all, a folktale needs to be passed from generation to generation, like your grandparents told it to your parents and your parents told it to you.
In this story it clearly states it when the story mentions: “They say that the children that could not fly told their children, ” pg., lines. A well developed folktale must always include supernatural powers, A useful example would be as the story follows: “And they flew like blackbirds over the fields, ” pg., lines. A folktale should have a theme, or it could also explain why things are the way they are, In the story, it says: “Then, many people were captured for slavery, ” pg., line. It explains that black people were forced to slavery, Last, but not least, a good folktale must always focus on one specific culture, In this story, its Africa: “Say that long ago in Africa, where some of the people knew magic, ” pg., lines. After reviewing the story “The People Could Fly”, it is definitely a folktale,
I would definitely recommend this book so that other people can learn what I learned,




Guillermo Alba Wow, Inspiring, heartbreaking, poetic, and intense, This is an amazing tale that by some act of neglect I had never heard before, It is beautifully told and illustrated in this edition, The references to eyewitnesses and how the story may or may not be true made it quite magical as a story/mythos,

The beauty of this story is that flying is being used as an analogy for many things: of escape from slavery, of hope, of the lost African traditions and culture, of

second chances.
The story manages to convey hope, resourcefulness, and pride possibly the only things allowing enslaved people to survive while at the same time acknowledging the unforgivable losses, and the heartbreak experienced even in the midst of victory.
Truly poignant.

I didn't realize it beforehand, but the content is a bit much for ayear old I'm thinking maybewould be the youngest I would have wanted to read it.
There are a lot of mentions of whipping slaves, and pictures of the whip, and of people who can barely stand up due to the hardships of slavery.
I am not sure whether it was implied that some of them were dying as they were called up to fly, but it was definitely that intense.
This is a picture book edition of a single story from Virginia Hamiltons collection The People Could Fly: American Black Folk Tales, The narrative of this folktale is in the tradition of oral storytelling, lyrical and moving, Prior to capture into slavery, some Africans had the magical power of flight, During the grim trip to America, and under the harsh conditions of slavery, many Africans had forgotten the magic, Toby and Sarah still knew the magic, and as their treatment worsens, they attempt to recapture the magic of flight,

Scholastic. com lists this book as gradelevel equivalent,. An audio cd version is available for Hamiltons larger story collection, There are numerous opportunities for classroom use, For example, students can explore the transformation of characters in a story, Initially, flight was a magical and joyous power that some Africans held, Students examine how and why they lost the magic, cause and effect, and how the ability to fly takes on a different kind of importance, This text would also serve to introduce the topic of slavery, A genre study of folktales, and crosscultural comparisons are examples for other classroom use,

Similar texts exploring African folktales include Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales ISBN:and Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions ISBN:,

This reviewer did not detect objectionable material, Culturally, this story is a based upon a common African folktale theme of the ability to fly, The author notes that flight might be a wishfullfilment motif n, pag. based upon the desire to escape cruel circumstances,
"The People Could Fly" is a folktale and this will explain why, This story has been passed generation to generation in Africa and does not have a specific author, This story is based on beliefs of African people during the time of slavery, There is also a supernatural power where Toby can make people fly by saying the magic words, page,line. This folktale also has a lesson:"Eventhough you are in a harsh situation there will always be a way for you to get out of it.
"page,line. I really recommend this book, it is really interesting and it keeps you wanting more and more, “The People Could Fly” is a folktale about Africans knowing about magic and being able to fly, This folktale tells how Africans were brought to America and mistreated to the point where they died because of the hard work or escaped from their misery.
It also talks about how the slave forgot how to “fly” when they were brought to America, The people that could fly now slaves that could fly were able to fly away from their misery thanks to Tobys magic word, but the slaves that couldn't fly had to stay.

A folktale is a story that has no author and has passed from generation to generation, A folktale also has to have a lesson or explain how or why something happened, it has to have something super natural, and come from an specific culture.
On “The People Could Fly” we can find evidence of this story being passed from generation to generation on pageline, “They say the children of the once who could not fly told their children.
And now, me, I have told you, ” We can find evidence of this folktale being from the African American slave culture in pagelineand lines, “Then many people were capture for slavery.
” “The folks were full of misery, then got sick with the up and down of the sea, ” This. gives us evidence because we know Africans were brought to America to be slaves, On pagelinethere is also evidence of African American slave culture, “The slaves labored in the filed from sunup to sundown” with prayer knowledge we know that Africans Americans slave had to work a lot.
This story has a lot of super natural things but one of them is people flying, The evidence of the people flying is on pageline, “They say people could fly, ” Also there is evidence in pageline, “The young women lifted one foot in the air then the other, ” In pagelineand linethere is also evidence of African American slave culture, “The old and young who were called slaves and could fly joined hands.
” “And the old man, old Toby flew behind him”, So the last part of a folktale that we are missing is the lesson or explanation, This folktale doesnt have a lesson but it has an explication of how African Americans slaves escaped and or died, the evidence is in the whole book.
In pages,and, it explains how slaves were mistreated which caused them to escape, or caused them the death, Really interesting book. The forward said in the original stories the people within were not given names so the author gave them names, In Of Mice and Men Curleys wife was also without a name and if I remember correctly it was so she could be any person and not having a name also demeaned her because she was not worthy of having a even name.


I think this story was supposed to be uplifting but it made me sad,

In Saudi Arabia there are also stories of people that can fly,

This spellbinding picture began with one of the tales in the late, great Virginia Hamiltonscollection of American Black folktales, This picture book was intended as a memorial to Hamilton, winner of both the Newbery Medal and the National Book Award, and what a fine one it is! Illustrator Janet Schulman breathes life into this story, in which one old man enchants slave after slave so that they can fly to freedom, leaving the enslaver and his overseer sputtering.
A delight for children and adults alike, Since the dawn of time I imagine every single parent who has ever lived has probably said at one time or another,

"There has never been a more difficult time to raise children in.
"

What are we meant to tell our children when they come to us with questions about police shooting unarmed black men and women in the streets, at their front doors or in their beds When they want to understand something as huge and important as the Black Lives Matter movement How do you take a topic like slavery that has reached its rotted roots so far down into the foundations of our country it infects practically every single part of its daily life and turn into something they can even begin to understand

If you live in my house you usually begin the conversation with a book.
First because its something tangible that you can hold in your hand and show them, Second because the right books find the words for you, guide you toward truths that you have in your heart but can't articulate, If you're very lucky the right words are married to images so profound in their beauty and execution that they elevate what you're reading to even greater heights of understanding for both you and your kids.


That's what this book does, It opened a door for my family last night when we read it at bedtime, By the time I was done reading I was almost singing the words, something that inspired my youngest to ask "why are you reading in an accent"

Never say I don't use my Theater and Dramatic Literature degree folks.


This story is the title story in a book of African American folktales written by Virginia Hamilton in, The original collection was showered in very much deserved awards and accolades and this particular story has acquired an almost mythic quality all on its own.


Its very, very easy to see why, It feels like something from the beginning of time, An ancient legend about Africans once gifted with the magic of flight who soared through the skies on beautiful black wings, Africans who lost those wings when they were packed into slave ships, sold and forced into lives of abject misery and oppression, but found them again in time to rise up and fly away from their masters to become beacons of hope for those without wings of their own.


You can imagine this story being told in whispers around cooking fires and in the desolate bunks in slave quarters, traded back and forth like a prayer.
Something to dream of and for,

Leo and Diane Dillon who provided the original black and white illustrations that appeared in the collection have created simply epic paintings to accompany this edition.
They're so rich and vibrant you just want to grab them up in your hands, There's an elegance to everything that really does suggest a kind of ancient nobility or even religious iconography, We stayed on each page even after I was done reading just to take it all in, They capture the joy of the flight from oppression and the horror of a life in slavery perfectly, There's an especially harrowing image of slaves trapped inside the hold of a ship where the fear and despair is so strong you almost have to force yourself not to look away.


The real gift here is the talk we had afterwards, We talked about what slavery has done to our country, how important stories like this are for everyone, why its important to learn the whole truth about our countries history, how important it is to recognize our privilege as white people, and maybe the most important thing, the need for us to take responsibility for the times when we engage in racist actions.
That's a tough one to explain to kids and obviously it'll be an ongoing conversation since its something the husband and I are working on too and it never stops.


Its still hard, I struggle every day to balance telling my children how proud they make me, what good men I think they're growing up to be with the harder realities of what it means to be a white man in America.
But books like this make it a little easier,

Gorgeous and powerful, A true literary treasure.

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