Dreams of My Ancestors (BOOK REVIEW)
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Dreams of My Ancestors
by L.E. Chavous
EOTO Publishing
ABA
Publishing
Hardcover, $17.95
56 pages, Illustrated
ISBN: 978-0-9830332-2-6
Book
Review by Kam Williams
“Approximately
455,000 African men, women, girls and boys were the original ancestors of the
estimated 40 million African-American people in the USA today. In this book, we take a
look at who they were and what their lives were like before they came to the Americas.”
--
Excerpted from the Introduction (page 1)
Most African-Americans
can, at best, trace their lineage back to the end of slavery. For, prior to Emancipation,
blacks were merely considered property to be bred, bought and sold at the whim
of their white owners.
Consequently,
African-Americans know precious little about their ancestry, between the
inability to construct their family trees and the omission of Black History
from the average public school curriculum. In recent years, however, a couple
of PBS-TV series hosted by Dr. Henry Louis Gates focusing on celebrities tracing
their roots has ignited popular interest in undertaking similar searches.
Now, L.E. Chavous has written “Dreams
of My Ancestors,” an engaging, educational tool ostensibly designed to pique
the interest of impressionable, African-American young minds in their heritage.
The author has structured his delightfully-illustrated opus in novel fashion,
namely, as if it were a talk between a father and a son.
The dad starts by
explaining how Africans came to first arrive at these shores and why so much of
their connection to the motherland was lost over the intervening centuries. He
goes on to employ a map to point out where on the continent those forefathers
came from and to show how, with the help of DNA testing, it is now possible to
identify one’s “long-lost cousins.”
The bulk of the text,
however, is devoted to an informative lecture about African culture during
which the son learns about food, jewelry, folktales, ethnic groups and
elsewhat. The book also features a menu of native dishes, such as cassava,
jollof rice, fufu and peppery stew, and even includes a glossary explaining the
meaning of obscure terms like junkamoo (a festive celebration) and djembe
(drum).
An admirable intro to
African traditions carefully crafted to enlighten school age black kids.
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