Brave Music of a Distant Drum

January 1, 2012
Clearly still aiming to shock, Herbstein recasts but does not tone down his debut novel, originally published for adult audiences as Ama: A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade (2001). Punctuating her narrative with rapes (some of which are explicitly described) and other atrocities, from forced cannibalism to a flogging that leaves her scarred and one-eyed, blind old Ama relates her life's hard story to her increasingly disturbed son Zacharias. He, though still enslaved, had been raised in a white official's household and forced to suppress memories of his earliest years on the Bahian engenho (sugar plantation). Writing in terse, simple language, the Ghana-born author zigzags between points of view--injecting notes of irony (the slave ship that carries Ama to Brazil is named The Love of Liberty, for instance) and acidly matter-of-fact indictments of the brutality and hypocrisy of white slaveholding Christians. Callously ordered away just as his mother is dying, by the end Zacharias sheds his self-righteous naiveté, returns to calling himself by his birth name Kwame Zumbi and vows to share his true heritage with his own young daughter. Readers will be moved as much by Ama's intelligence and unwavering sense of self respect as by her hideous experiences. The agenda is never less than obvious, but it's a powerful tale nonetheless. (map, cast list, glossary) (Historical fiction. 15 & up)

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May 1, 2012

Gr 9 Up-This novel portrays the difficult and heroic life of a slave from her capture in Africa to her horrifying journey across the Atlantic and her life on a European plantation in Brazil. Elderly, nearly blind, and dying, Ama has led both a privileged and a tormented life, and she wishes to record her life story for her estranged son, Zacharias, who naively believes that his important position will be his ticket out of slavery. He is a clerk and scribe for the Consul of the United Kingdom and arrogantly expects the promise of his freedom to be fulfilled by the wife of his employer. Summoned to his mother's deathbed, he learns the truth about their family history. By the end of his visit, mother and son come to understand each other, and Zacharias resolves to pass on his mother's story to his daughter. Though this edition of the adult novel Ama: A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade (E-reads, 2000) has been toned down for young adult audiences, the author does not shy away from realism, gruesomeness, and candor, including graphic portrayals of rape, beatings, and other atrocities. The story unfolds from alternating perspectives with Ama narrating most of the book. An insightful and, at times, heartbreaking read.-Rita Soltan, Youth Services Consultant, West Bloomfield, MI

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2012
Grades 11-1 GhanaianSouth African author Herbstein won the 2002 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book for his adult novel Ama: A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade (2001). Now he tells Ama's story for a YA audience. Adopted as a child by the British consul's wife in eighteenth-century Brazil, Zacharias knows English and Portuguese, and he is a valued clerk at the embassy. Then his biological mother, Ama, an African-born slave who is now blind, summons him to write down her story before she dies. As she tells the truth about the unspeakable suffering, violence, and betrayal she experienced, from the intertribal raids in Africa, to the slave-ship journey, the revolt she led with Zacharias' father, the rape she suffered, and the bloody conflict, Zacharias confronts what he has suppressed, including his father's hanging. With the huge cast and constantly switching viewpoints, along with the details of horrifying brutality, this will be best for older teens, who will get the bitter irony of the Christian conversion of the heathens: what does salvation mean for slaves?(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)