New Releases by Julius Lester

An illustrated collection of twelve folk tales, ten African and two Jewish.

With his boisterous friends and rowdy enemies, Brer Rabbit is on the road to adventure. He gets a job and figures out how to get paid--twice a day! Times may change, but Brer Rabbit is forever! 32 illustrations, 8 in full color.

A husband does not believe it when his wife tells him that their crying baby is comforted by a huge eagle who flies down with its sharp talons and alights on the baby.

A modern retelling with contemporary references to 12 African and African American folktales.

A retelling of the classic Afro-American tales relating the adventures and misadventures of Brer Rabbit and his friends and enemies.

A collection of thirty-five essays of Julius Lester.

The author retells the classic Afro-American tales.

Delightfully funny animal stories and beautifully detailed paintings certain to captivate children.

Poems and photographs dealing with the themes of love, identity, city and country life, and childhood.

Meet Rambler, a runaway slave roaming the countryside with a guitar, who knows the only way to stay free is to keep moving. Louis is another runaway, fleeing the plantation where he was raised, because he is about to be sold. And Jake and Mandy''s marriage is damaged by slavery''and destroyed by freedom. Here is the African-American experience, brought alive by a master storyteller.''Lester has an eye for capturing the essence of a human experience.''AHis work? boldly proclaims the heritage of African-Americans.'' ? The New York Times Book Review

Retells six tales from American black folk literature: "Why the waves have whitecaps," "Mr. Rabbit and Mr. Bear," "Why dogs hate cats," "The farmer and the snake," "What is trouble?" and "The knee-high man."

A collection of essays introduce various facets of the struggle for radical change in American society, ranging from Women''s Liberation to the Yippies

From Introduction: "Huddie Ledbetter, nicknamed Leadbelly, died in December, 1949 at the age of 64. He had come out of the deep South, settled down in a little apartment on New York''s lower East Side, determined to build a successful career as a musician. Unfortunately, there was not much interest in folk music then. He got occasional jobs singing for schools and colleges, or at little parties where they were raising money for some cause like helping Loyalist Spain. Until the last three years of his life, he had barely recorded more than a few dozen songs. Today, through his recordings, he is world famous as one of the greatest singers of folksongs of this century. Songs he composed, or helped put together out of the fragments of older tunes, or adapted into the form in which we all know them now, have sold in the tens of millions: Good Night Irene, Bring Me A Little Water, Silvy, Midnight Special, Rock Island Line, Kisses Sweeter Than Wine (the tune), Old Cotton Fields At Home, and many others. The driving rhythms he developed on his unusual guitar, with its double strings, are unforgettable to anyone who ever heard them. Today, many young people wishing to learn his songs as he sang them, are trying to learn his style of guitar playing. This book is designed to help them, but it cannot be considered a substitute for listening to the recordings of Leadbelly....It must be remembered that more is involved than playing the correct notes and rhythm. When you listen to Leadbelly on record, you are listening to a man with many years of experience play an instrument. To achieve what he achieved is something which cannot be communicated in a book." - Julius Lester