IMANI AND THE FLYING AFRICANS

by Janice Liddell
Illustrated by Linda Nickens

This is the touching story of a young boy who "returns home" by car with his mother to Savannah, Georgia from Detroit. Imani is introduced, through story telling by his mother, to a part of his race and familial history he has never known.

"Granny's Mama was a real slave, Mama? I never knew we had slaves in our family," is Imani's response to a bit of family history told by his mother for the first time. When his mother tells him the tale of the flying Africans, a fantastic tale of rebellion which has been passed past, but to an extended family.

This is the touching story of a young boy who "returns home" by car with his mother to Savannah, Georgia from Detroit. Imani is introduced, through story telling by his mother, to a part of his race and familial history he has never known.

"Granny's Mama was a real slave, Mama? I never knew we had slaves in our family," is Imani's response to a bit of family history told by his mother for the first time. When his mother tells him the tale of the flying Africans, a fantastic tale of rebellion which has been passed past, but to an extended family.

This tale, based on an actual myth found in the Georgia Sea Islands, works well to initiate Imani into the history of his roots.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR
JANICE LIDDELL, Ph.D., is associate professor and chairperson of the English Department at Clark-Atlanta University. She resides in Atlanta with her two sons and partner.

LINDA NICKENS, the illustrator, resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and has illustrated Senefer: A Young Genius in Old Egypt (AWP 1992).

CATEGORY
Children's Books