STEP IT DOWN: Games and Plays of Afro-American Children

by Bess Lomax & Bessie Jones Hawes ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 8, 1971

The games, plays, dances, and riddles of black children culled by folklorist Bess Lomax Hawes from the music of Bessie Jones, a 65-year-old black woman who remembers them from her ""days coming up"" in Georgia. No guitars or glockenspiels are needed but hooting and hollering, hand clapping (in three distinct pitch ranges -- bass, baritone, tenor), skipping and jumping, mime, shuffles, struts and wiggles are all carefully described by Mrs. Hawes along with dance steps you won't see on Sesame Street like Jump for Joy, Snake-Hips, Zudie-O, Ranky Tank, Buzzard Lope, and Possum-La. Affectionately annotated with historical scats on the transplanting of the street-rhymes of medieval London and Edinburgh to the cotton fields of Georgia and South Carolina: ""One of the small wonders of history -- the stability and perseverance of the traditions of childhood."" Many were originally played and sung during such down-home activities as peanut shelling, corn husking, quilting, and taffy pulling, but they should flourish equally well in your local nursery school or back yard if you follow Mrs. Hawes' sensible instructions: ""Don't be too solemn, or too organized. These are for play."" Ready or not, one, two, three, Ali Hid? Musical scores.

Pub Date: Dec. 8, 1971

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1971

Categories: NONFICTION