As I was reading The Invention of Wings (see below), this children's book caught my eye. This version of an American Black folktale in which Africans had the magical ability to fly but then had to shed their wings as they were being transported aboard slavery ships lends itself to the title and some of the motifs of Sue Monk Kidd's novel. "The People Could Fly" was first published in 1985 as one of 24 tales in Virginia Hamilton's The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales. The picture book was published in 2004 with all-new illustrations by the same artists who illustrated the original collections as a tribute to the author, after her death in 2002.
The rich illustrations add a colorful detail to this somber and uplifting fantasy tale of suffering, of magic power and of a spirit of wish-fulfillment.
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