A scrapbook for the whole race.

From My People: 400 Years of African American Folklore Edited by Daryl Cumber Dance W.W. Norton & Company, November 2003 $19.95, ISBN 0-393-32497-4

As a first generation "Yankee," I grew up surrounded by songs, stories, parables, folktales and fables passed down from my deeply Southern family members. What a shock--and a pleasant one, at that--to see so many of those tales recaptured in Daryl Cumber Dance's beautiful, exhaustive anthology From My People.

Reading it transported me back to my grandmother's kitchen, where news was shared, lessons taught and love served out of huge steel pots and cast-iron frying pans. From My People reminds me of one of my mother's handmade quilts, fused from scraps to make a beautiful heirloom. Professor Dance has done the same, assembling the words that depict and define African American life in a stunning, soulful collection. Finally, in this book I have the full text of the snatches of songs my father sang while tinkering under the hood of his car, all the stanzas of "Jimmy Crack Corn" and others.

From My People puts on a fine display of 400 years of African American life through folktales, music, arts and crafts (including graffiti!), proverbs, rhymes, shouts, riddles, game chants, dozens, superstitions, rumors, snaps, and all that make us so very richly black. The editor has assembled a treasure that chronicles our essence and continues the passing down of our wisdom. She has included photographs to better illustrate our African American experience. The list of contributors is long and distinguished. Even more impressive are the ones whose names we have never even heard.

Professor Dance dedicated this book to her son. It will also be a gift to my sons, in the event I forget to tell them some part of what makes us uniquely us.

--Reviewed by Robin Green