Imani's Music. (children's reviews).

Imani's Music
by Sheron Williams with
illustrations by Jude Daly
Antheneum Books for Young Readers
January 2002, $17.00
ISBN 0-689-82254-5, Ages 6-9

The lilting rhymes of Sheron Williams's Imani's Music are so lyrical--like a softly sung lullaby-that you almost forget it is a tale about the Middle Passage. It is a story of the "Used-to-Be" (Africa), the "Here-and-Now" (America) and the What's-Gon'-Come as told by a grasshopper named Imani.

In the tradition of African folklore, this children's book tells the tale of a land where there is no music save for the songs of one little grasshopper, who plays blades of grass on the Serengeti plains of his homeland. It is an allegory that is not so much about the loss of music but the loss of freedom, family and humanity during slavery and the slave trade. Although the story details a tragic period in history, the book deftly handles this episode in the African-American experience with aplomb. Imani's Music is neither morose nor overly moralizing.

Jude Daly's illustrations are painterly in their use of color, with broad vivid land and seascapes depicting the world as seen through Imani's eyes on both sides of the Atlantic.

At times bittersweet, filled with longings of the "Used-to-Be" and hopes of the "Here-and-Now," Imani's Music, with its lush imagery and artfully woven folktale, is ultimately a story of African American triumph.

--Natasha K. Woods is a contributor to BIBR living in Los Angeles.