Hamilton retells twenty-four Black American folktales, organized in groups that move from animal trickster tales, through tales of the real, the extravagant, and the supernatural, to slave tales of freedom. Bruh Rabbit outwits Bruh Bear and Bruh Fox; John and Old Master test each other's cunning; ghosts, devils, and enchanted figures appear alongside figures drawn from slavery's lived history. Each tale is followed by Hamilton's notes on its sources and meanings, and the Dillons' forty black-and-white illustrations give the collection a visual gravity unusual in children's folklore publishing. The title story — of Africans who, remembering old magic, rise from a cotton field and fly home to freedom — became one of the most anthologized American folktales of the twentieth century. Winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, the collection remains Hamilton's best-known work of folklore and a landmark in bringing Black oral tradition to young readers.
Author: Virginia Hamilton; illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon · Original publisher: Alfred A. Knopf (New York), 1985
