Imani's Music [Hardcover]

Sheron Williams (Author), Jude Daly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2002

Every once in awhile, Grandfather would tell a story about the land of Used-to-Be.

This was how his story began: Used to be a time when there was no music on the planet. Only one tiny creature, a grass-hopper named Imani, was blessed with the gift of music.

Imani sang his beautiful songs alone, all the while praying, Please, Ancestors, give music to the world. Answering his prayer, they shook music out of the sky, pouring song on Africa's mountain ranges, on the grasslands, all the way to the shore.

But when Imani is swept onto a slave ship and taken across the ocean, he doesn't know where to turn, and music is his only guide.

Sheron William's rich story of a grass-hopper's special gift -- complemented by Jude Daly's stunning depictions of Africa and the New World, Heaven and Earth -- is a testament to the universal language of music.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Used to be a time when there was no music on the planet," imagines Williams (And in the Beginning). But Imani, an African grasshopper, plays so sweetly that the Ancestors agree to give him the gift of song: "A wallop of tune fell on Imani, and the world soaked up the rest like a sponge." As the grasshopper travels across Africa, singing and playing, he meets Umoja, a weaver who plays the flute. When slave traders capture Umoja (and Imani with him), the man is chained while Imani escapes notice. What can he do? "Do not cry. Busy yourself with what you can do. Give us music! Give us hope!" Umoja tells him. In the new land, Imani finds a wife, Hope (she translates Imani's name as Faith), and teaches his children to sing, but he never again finds Umoja. Slaves in the new world learn Imani's songs, too. "Sometimes they sang them bittersweet, but they always sang on!" Daly's (Gift of the Sun) diminutive figures move through rolling landscapes of ocher earth and lapis sky; their very smallness suggests lives lived within nature, not in opposition to it. Even the menacing slave ships are dwarfed by the unchanging horizons of sea and sky. Both a eulogy for the lost freedom of countless captives and a celebration of the land from which they came, Williams's moving tale never skips a beat. Ages 6-9.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Gr 2-5-In this story within a story, a narrator recounts her grandfather's tale about a time when there was no music. The grasshopper, Imani, loved to stay out in the rain and enjoy the gift of music the Ancestors sent to earth along with each rainstorm. But feeling this gift was too wonderful to keep to himself, he begged the Ancestors to send music to the whole world. Soon all of Africa rang with glorious sounds. When Imani was taken aboard a slave ship in the sack of one of the prisoners, it was his music that gave his suffering companions hope. Once on the shores of a strange land, Imani traveled, teaching his songs to the people and to his own children, and those songs can still be heard today. The text effectively evokes the voice of an old Southern storyteller spinning a tale in dialect about a land that "Used-to-Be." Listeners will enjoy making the "Cush, cush, cush" sounds of the boats; the "Lap, lap, lap" of the waves; and the "Clink, clink, clink" of the chains. The folk-art watercolor illustrations are a perfect foil for the homespun feel of the text. If they look carefully, readers will see Imani himself in almost every picture. The sun-drenched colors depicting the African landscape where people and animals live in joyous harmony contrast sharply with the dark palette used to depict the harsh realities of the slave ship's journey. A fine tribute to storytelling and the power of music to enrich and heal.

Marianne Saccardi, Norwalk Community College, CT

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 40 pages
• Publisher: Atheneum; 1 edition (January 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689822545
• ISBN-13: 978-0689822544
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,649,643 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We Sang On!, March 7, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Imani's Music (Hardcover)

This book is a powerful testament to the power of faith, hope , music and a people. As an African American woman it gave me an opportunity to discuss the hard subjects of the middle passage and slavery as it pertains to African Americans, with my children ,in a way that was not sad or confrontational. Just conversation opening. Using music as the thread that could hold a people and Imani the grasshopper together during the middle passage journey was a wonderful literary device easily picked up on even by my six year old. Because of this book she has vowed to me that she will sing everyday. This book has become her favorite book and when I hear her voice in the morning it becomes mine too.

5.0 out of 5 stars A real tear jerker, February 18, 2008

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This review is from: Imani's Music (Hardcover)

I know I'm sensitive, but I was trying to hold back tears as I read it to my children. It sees slavery from a grasshopper's point of view and I think it is just fantastic and a great way to start telling your children our history.