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First Time Poster
Username: Amywozabookscom
Post Number: 4
Registered: 12-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - 10:43 pm: | 
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Here is our latest press release from Woza Books, entitled "What If Harry Potter Was Black?"
What if millions of young people, of every ethnicity, were reading and talking about a fantasy adventure with all Black characters that teaches African American family values? Have your children been waiting for this event? Wait no more. The Call to Shakabaz, just out from Woza Books, has no English schoolboys or medieval Anglo-Saxon archetypes and imagery. It doesn’t even have a gory battle scene. All the characters in this book are Black (some mixed with other vibrant hues). Traditionally, most of the best African American juvenile fiction does not utilize the fantasy adventure model, instead relating historically accurate stories. But young people growing up in the Harry Potter Era love a juicy fantasy adventure. Here is a book set in an African American cultural context that offers a refreshingly different slant on adventuring in make-believe lands.
The Call to Shakabaz utilizes the traditional African device of the littlest creatures finding a clever way to win over the mighty and it builds on the bedrock of “what goes around comes around” by emphasizing the values of compassion and respect for others. The wise woman the children go to for advice is called the “griot,” the natural environment provides answers to questions when approached with love, and music solves more than one problem. In fact, music and drumming might qualify as another character in this book. Donnell Alexander said “Cool is all about trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents.” That’s exactly what the young heroes and heroines do in the pages of The Call to Shakabaz. A reader writes: “One of the reasons this book works for me is that, being Black, I finally found a story that had people in it who actually look and talk like me. That is very cool.” And another: “How many children’s fantasy/adventure stories feature main characters who are not white? I don’t think I fully realized the extent of this omission until reading The Call to Shakabaz.”
Author Amy Wachspress sidesteps many conventions and offers instead original resolutions to sticky situations. In their quest to retrieve the powerful Staff of Shakabaz from the malevolent enchanter Sissrath, the young protagonists Doshmisi, Denzel, Maia, and Sonjay, with their pesky parrot Bayard Rustin, outsmart or transform their enemies rather than killing them; and the climactic battle scene teaches the fundamental principles of nonviolence and satyagraha as practiced by Dr. King and Gandhi. The book is a sizzling fun ride for the whole family to boot (great read-aloud). When the final page turns and the dust clears, The Call to Shakabaz inspires readers to think deeply about how to apply African American cultural values to the challenging task of making the lasting earthly peace on which our survival depends. Visit the Woza Books website: www.wozabooks.com.
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