Product Description

Virginia Hamilton has once again brought her well-loved trickster, the invisible Jahdu, to life in this updated collection of eleven previously published, and four newly created, stories. Jahdu is based on a centuries-old folklore tradition, yet the tales themselves are original and drawn from Hamilton’s imagination. “The language is vigorous and masterfully honed, while the character of lively, powerful, self-defining Jahdu has appeal.”--Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3714701 in Books
• Published on: 1991-10-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 104 pages

From School Library Journal
Grade 3-6-- A collection of 11 previously told tales and 4 completely new ones. In the original stories, The Time-Ago Tales of Jahdu (1969) , Time-Ago Lost (1973, both Macmillan; both o.p.) , and Jahdu (Greenwillow, 1980; o.p.), Mama Luka entertains her young charge, Lee Edward, by plucking stories about Jadhu out of the air and tasting them before passing them on. In these reconstructed versions, Mama Luka has been removed and Jahdu emerges as the central character, an ``all-out trickster, magical and devilish, good and bad, imp and elf.'' These mythical tales are set in a fantasti cal place and time to convey mystery, adventure, humor, and enjoyment. Moser's striking watercolors show texture and consistency of drama without ever portraying the diminutive fellow graphically. Readers and listeners will find delight and wonder in these tales. A storyteller's treasure.
- Helen E. Williams, formerly at University of Maryland, College Park
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
In 1969, Hamilton published The Time-Ago Tales of Jahdu, four tales about a trickster boy-hero who expressed his sense of freedom by ``running along'' and whose favorite exclamation was ``Woogily!'' Like those in Time-Ago Lost (1973), they were set in a framing story about ``Mama Luka'' in ``a fine, good place called Harlem,'' telling her stories to young Lee Edward. Now Hamilton drops the framing story, adds a central section (``Jahdu Adventure'') with four new pieces (including one involving the giant Trouble as a robot and one in which Jahdu encounters several folkloric characters), and tightens and reshapes the whole. By eliminating the explicit celebration of pride in the black experience, she highlights the rich blend of creation myths, philosophies, and folklore that inspired these tales; they seem more universal here than they did in the earlier setting. But they are still not easy; like the later books in the Justice series, they can be hard to follow, their events imposed by symbols that seem arbitrarily intertwined. Still, the language is vigorous and masterfully honed, while the character of lively, powerful, self-defining Jahdu has appeal even though some of his adventures are less than compelling. Moser contributes the attractive design and 20 beautifully painted glimpses of the scenes and characters in Jahdu's world. (Fiction. 8-12) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About the Author
Virginia Hamilton’s books, which combined African-American and Native American lore with contemporary stories and characters, are memorable not only for their inventiveness and rich characterizations, but also for their ability to evoke a wide variety of times, places, and historical figures. She resided in Yellow Springs, Ohio till her death in 2002.

Barry Moser (born 1940) is a renowned artist, most famous as a printmaker and illustrator of numerous works of literature.

Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1940, Moser studied at the Baylor School, Auburn University, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and did post-graduate work at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Some of his most celebrated work has been his illustrations for Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, each of which consisted of more than a hundred prints, and the former of which won him American Book Award for design and illustration in 1982. He has illustrated nearly 200 other works as well, including The Bible. He currently serves on the faculty of the Rhode Island School of Design and Smith College.

His works have been displayed in such places as the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, Harvard, and the Library of Congress.