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FEMI AND THE OLD GRANDADDIE by Adjai Robinson

FEMI AND THE OLD GRANDADDIE

By

Pub Date: Nov. 1st, 1972
Publisher: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan

An original tale by a student of African folklore, this hews to a universal theme -- a poor boy wins the hand of a princess by an act of kindness. Femi's generosity is actually reluctant -- decreed by his ingrained respect for the elderly and a certain fear of the creepy old Grandaddie who appears mysteriously in a canoe and demands the huge cassava Femi desperately needed as bait to trap the grorn pig that had been digging up his garden. The more dramatic moments -- Femi's parents being swept away in a flood, the Grandaddie whispering the secret name of the headman's daughter, the grotesque teasing of the headman's clown -- are heightened by Jerry Pinkney's fluid pencil drawings. His wonderfully expressive faces, semi-abstract landscapes and draperies, and clever use of perspective and pose keep the reader right in the middle of the action.