When Birds Could Talk And Bats Could Sing [Hardcover]

Virginia Hamilton (Author), Barry Moser (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1996

Based on African-American folktales told in the South during the plantation era, a collection of stories originally gathered by journalist Martha Young pays tribute to the human spirit in the face of terrible hardship.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With impressive aplomb, Hamilton follows the ambitious Her Stories with eight animal tales, reworked from 19th-century originals recorded by a slave owner's daughter. The stories are told in the cante fable tradition, with plenty of rhyming and singing, and an apparently artless ease ("Well, Miss Mockingbird reeled the song off as pretty as you please"). They must be read aloud. And they will be-the foibles, squabblings and occasional good deeds of Miss Bat, Bruh Buzzard and Sis Wren are our own. The self-deceived Miss Bat's two stories epitomize the book. She shakes loose all her beautiful feathers, then casts away all her songs, so that she will not be like any bird... and soon she most certainly is not. The reader will laugh, ruefully, at her pride, recognizing the moral ("For pride has a way of taking a fall every time") long before it appears as the satisfying conclusion. A wonderful complement to the front-porch voice of the stories, Moser's bright watercolors vibrate with dozens of birds confronting the reader in their best hats and bonnets, their faces alive with contentment, irritation or panic. These vaguely Disneyesque characters strut through formal full-page compositions and flutter, flounce and perch among the lines of type. It's unusually warm and down-to-earth work for Moser, some of his best, and helps to make this book, if not the most serious of Hamilton's collections, one of her most enjoyable and accessible. All ages.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 2-5?Hamilton's hilarious and accessible retellings of eight bird and bat stories based on African American folktales are a joy to read. They are kin to the Bruh/Brer Rabbit stories, and were originally assembled by a Southern journalist, Martha Young, in the 1880s. Hamilton takes care to document and explain her sources. Some of these selections were collected from folklore and others Young herself created; together they form a cohesive, delightful whole. Moser has glowingly illustrated all manner of creatures in his illustrious career, but the flighty feathered ones he creates here are among his best. He skillfully and with great glee defines a cast of hat-wearing wrens, jays, buzzards, and even a self-obsessed, singing bat with a serious attitude problem. There is also one painting that looks suspiciously like Moser himself?in comically gruesome disguise, of course. The dynamic duo that created In the Beginning (Harcourt, 1988) has succeeded again with this lively collection.?Jennifer Fleming, Boston Public Library
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 72 pages
• Publisher: Blue Sky Press; First Edition edition (March 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0590473727
• ISBN-13: 978-0590473729
• Product Dimensions: 12.1 x 8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,903,363 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Virginia Esther Hamilton was born, as she said, "on the outer edge of the Great Depression," on March 12, 1934. The youngest of five children of Kenneth James and Etta Belle Perry Hamilton, Virginia grew up amid a large extended family in Yellow Springs, Ohio. The farmlands of southwestern Ohio had been home to her mother's family since the late 1850s, when Virginia's grandfather, Levi Perry, was brought into the state as an infant via the Underground Railroad.

Virginia graduated at the top of her high-school class and received a full scholarship to Antioch College in Yellow Springs. In 1956, she transferred to the Ohio State University in Columbus and majored in literature and creative writing. She moved to New York City in 1958, working as a museum receptionist, cost accountant, and nightclub singer, while she pursued her dream of being a published writer. She studied fiction writing at the New School for Social Research under Hiram Haydn, one of the founders of Atheneum Press.

It was also in New York that Virginia met poet Arnold Adoff. They were married in 1960. Arnold worked as a teacher, and Virginia was able to devote her full attention to writing, at least until daughter Leigh was born in 1963 and son Jaime in 1967. In 1969, Virginia and Arnold built their "dream home" in Yellow Springs, on the last remaining acres of the old Hamilton/Perry family farm, and settled into a life of serious literary work and achievement.

In her lifetime, Virginia wrote and published 41 books in multiple genres that spanned picture books and folktales, mysteries and science fiction, realistic novels and biography. Woven into her books is a deep concern with memory, tradition, and generational legacy, especially as they helped define the lives of African Americans. Virginia described her work as "Liberation Literature." She won every major award in youth literature.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully illustrated, wonderfully told..., May 12, 2005

By 

Glenn Miller (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: When Birds Could Talk And Bats Could Sing (Hardcover)

You couldn't ask for more in a children's book. I tripped across this book at our local library, picked it up and started reading it to my two sons, ages 8 and 10. It's a book that is meant for out-loud reading. Hamilton's prose is written in a very conversational tone, which mimics the way in which these southern tales were originally passed along: orally. Each story is about 3-4 pages long, with a lesson learned at the end of each one. Birds and bats engage in ridiculous actions and we -- the humans -- can learn from them. The book is as much fun to look at as it is to read, due to the beautiful artwork of the illustrator, Barry Moser.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful African American tales from the South, July 26, 2004

By 

Karen Woodworth Roman "Happy Librarian" (DeKalb, IL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: When Birds Could Talk And Bats Could Sing (Hardcover)

These stories were meant for telling. Virginia Hamilton adds a voice that is full. It is deep and loving. Most of the stories have a bit of verse or song. Each tale ends with the teller speaking the moral plainly to the children listening. For example, "How Bruh Sparrow and Sis Wren Lost Out" ends, "So, children, here's a leaf from the book of birds: Pick on your own size. For it's no use squabbling over what's too big for you to handle." I think these tales would be perfect for the mid to upper elementary audience as well as for adults.

There is a table of contents, but the stories are in no apparent order and are not grouped. Barry Moser's vibrant watercolor illustrations are not necessary for the storytelling. However, having seen them, it is hard to imagine the story without them.

Source Notes: The Afterword helps readers and tellers know the history and origins of these Southern, African-American tales. The stories in When Birds Could Talk & Bats Could Sing were originally written down by Martha Young who wrote them in the so-called black dialect of the plantation era. It is impossible to tell now which stories she heard from African American's and which she wrote herself. These stories are written in the prose style called cante fable. They include verse or song and end with a moral for children.

There is an entire page detailing and crediting the book designers and artists who helped put this book together.
Karen Woodworth-Roman

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ENJOYED EVERY PAGE OF THESE STORIES AS DO THE KIDS, September 6, 2006

By 

D. Blankenship (The Ozarks) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: When Birds Could Talk And Bats Could Sing (Hardcover)

This is truely a wonderful work for young folk. The illustrations are absolutely great. The depiction of each species of bird and animal is actually quite accurate, even dressed in the human clothing provided by the illustrator. This is a collection of 19th century African American folk tales, quite similar to the famous Brer Rabbit tales. These stories have been reworded so that 19th century dialect can be understood and be ralated to by children of today. Each story has a wonderful teaching and the text throughout the book matches the illustrations perfectly. In addition, there is a nice section at the back of the book which tells the source of these stories which is quite interesting standing alone. Recommend this one highly.