A Hat Full of Bird Tales

I was drawn to Virginia Hamilton’s When Birds Could Talk & Bats Could Sing by Barry Moser’s lively illustrations of birds behaving like humans on the cover of the book.  Inside, I found a collection of eight short stories based on African American folktales from the Plantation Era. Fascinated by birds, I must admit that I lingered over Moser’s illustrations of quarrelsome feathered creatures wearing hats for a while before engaging myself in these humorous tales of birds and bats.  To my delight, Hamilton’s texts read as though I was listening to an old enslaved plantation worker tell a story to a young child.

Through the experiences of personified birds and bats, each folktale tells the story of how present day birds and bats came to live the way they do. Why are cardinals red? Why do bats come out at night? Why are buzzards bald?  These are just a sampling of the questions that this collection of folktales attempts to answer for us. Each tale ends with a clearly stated moral explicitly directed toward children.  Hamilton’s rich language mixes prose with lyrical verse while hinting at the African American Vernacular in which the tales were originally told by well-known American folklorist Martha Young.

 In the afterword, Hamilton describes how Young wrote down many of the oral folktales told to her by the former slaves working on her father’s plantation.  Hamilton explains that she re-wrote each tale in simpler everyday language with the hope that generations to come will continue to read them aloud to their young children. I do think that the heritage in these folktales should be passed down to future generations, but the complexity of Hamilton’s language may not make this book a favorite. Children may be frustrated when attempting to comprehend these tales because they will sometimes need to weed through the text for meaning. Unfortunately, while Moser’s detailed illustrations of the feathered characters exude human emotions, they offer few clues that help children make sense of the plot. Ofcourse, a good story teller will help by explaining difficult passages to the children.

Still, this collection of African American folktales offers many learning opportunities for young minds.  While investigating animals, children might study Moser’s illustrations of birds and write their own folktales about bird behavior.  Using this book, older children might explore the history of African American culture, slavery, or plantation life. They might compare the morals in these tales to those around the world. Additionally, teachers might integrate social studies into the language arts curriculum through an author study on Martha Young or other American folklorists. Those interested in learning more about Martha Young might find the following link helpful This Goodly Land: Martha Young.