Ajeemah and His Son

A father and his eighteen-year-old son are each affected differently by their experiences as slaves in Jamaica in the early nineteenth century

Grade 6 Up-- On their way to arrange 18-year-old Atu's wedding in 1807, the young man and his father, Ajeemah, are captured by slave traders and shipped in chains from their African village to the sugar-cane plantations of Jamaica. They are separated--Ajeemah to work in a leather shop on one estate and Atu as a field hand on another. Ajeemah plots to rebel, but is be trayed. Atu commits suicide in despair when a horse that he has bought and cared for is taken from him. Ajeemah nearly goes mad with a vision of his son's death, until a Jamaican-born slave woman nurses him back to health. The two marry and survive to see their daughter marry in freedom. Told in a matter-of-fact manner, this historical novel has the realism, tone, and poignancy of a family story, poetic in its very spareness. Berry contrasts the men's fluid expression in their native language with their halting ``plantation English,'' and he beautifully captures the roots of the Caribbean dialect. Writing from an African perspective, the author conveys the differences between those slaves born in the New World and those brought from Africa; while his wife dreams of buying her freedom, Ajeemah refuses to pay money for that which was his by birth. Readers will comprehend the enormous grief experi enced by Ajeemah and Atu, but they will come away with a new sense of respect for those who maintained their dignity and humanity under the cruelest of circumstances. --Lyn Miller- Lachmann, Siena College Library, Loudonville, NY
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

With its very first line--"That wiping out of Atu and Sisi's wedding was always going to be one of the painful happenings"--this poignant narrative takes on the age-old voice of a folktale. On their way to present a dowry of gold to Sisi's parents, Ajeemah and his son Atu, the groom-to-be, are kidnapped, sold to slave traders and taken to Jamaica, where they are sold to different white estate-owners. From the onset of their new lives, both Ajeemah and Atu are determined not only to escape but to wreak revenge upon the slaveholders as well. Despite the similarity of their plans, father and son end up with quite different fates. This tale, though brief, is packed with details of a slave's frustrating and demeaning life; for the most part, Berry's ( A Thief in His Village ) prose incorporates this information seamlessly. Occasionally, however, the novel's overall simplicity is vitiated by sentences, as well as snippets of dialogue, that would seem more at home in a textbook. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.