The People Could Fly and Aesop's Fables

The People Could Fly

The single most important element of this collection of folktales, to me, is that the stories are very different than what the average reader is used to. The language is deeply personal, real, and provincial. I enjoyed reading through this collection, but after I finished I realized how much better the stories would be if read by a skilled reader. Most of the stories are powerful because of slight changes in intonation and the rising and falling of varied inflection.

It is sometimes hard to blend genres, but this collection accomplishes this feat with ease. What I mean is that most of the tales are both extremely funny and witty while simultaneously dark and horrific. Unlike Aesop’s fables, in the first half of this book (the stories that are mostly about animals) there really isn’t a clear moral message at the end to sum the stories up. The “meaning” of each story is drawn from the reader’s own emotional attachment to the very human characters and their strange endeavors.

What made this book interesting to me as a college student who loves language, history, and linguistics, is that at the end of each story a brief explanation tells the reader about the story’s origins. I think it is commonplace for Americans to think of African Americans as a group with exactly the same origins, ancestry, and history. To combat this sentiment or overgeneralization, there are stories from different Islands around the globe, stories influenced by specific areas of Africa such as Angola, which is the key source of what is known as Gullah, a creole language which is mostly English, but with a spirited, Angolan twist.

Earlier I described this collection of folktale as one void of any sort of “moral education,” but I guess this isn’t completely true. Many of the stories highlight the characters’ strengths and weaknesses, or, as the magical tales play out, the characters’ heroic, supernatural powers and earthly flaws. Intelligence is probably the most treasured power, and this tendency manifests itself often in riddles or special quests in which obstacles must be overcome. Since anyone – in theory – can have intelligence, from the smallest mouse to the largest animal, many of the tales highlight and celebrate the little guy’s triumph over a larger, and dumber, brute force.

Apart from the charming tales about personified animals, the latter half of the book deals with human characters dealing with very big issues, namely the quest for freedom. My favorite story is called “Carrying the Running-Aways.” Unlike the other stories, this one almost reads like a novel since there is back-story, a flowing narrative that builds all the way to the end, and a basis in the real world. I think I connected personally to this story because it is based loosely on real events, with dates, personages, and events that actually transpired. I love the fact that freedom is placed up on the highest shelf by the characters involved, seemingly unattainable to them but never hopeless. It is an adventure story that echoes stories about quests for princesses, treasure, or undiscovered lands – except the reward sought after is the most basic thing for a human being: freedom.

The next five stories are very similar to my favorite, and share some common themes. All of them involve a particular slave that has a special talent that helps them gain freedom, respect, or other goods. In the collection’s namesake story “The People Could Fly,” I really felt emotional due to the woman’s suffering out in the fields. Especially for a child, the exuberant change that takes place in her soul when she learns to fly far away from the fields is awesome. This collection of folktales is truly suitable from ages zero to 120.

Aesop’s Fables

I love the structure of this book: a short narrative that jumps right into the story, offering just enough back-story and framing to put things into perspective, and then a short, trite, and sometimes humorous moral dictum. Aesop’s fables really are creative stories that show the depths of human folly and the heights of human virtue. Like many of the stories in “The People Could Fly,” these fables are told through the eyes of animals, though some are directly about humans. I really think, though, that even very young children could pick up on how the author has engineered the stories to shine light on the readers themselves, personifying the animals to take on human qualities.

One strength of this book that I immediately took notice of was the comical illustrations that really guided the storyline. Though relatively simple, these colorful illustrations depict the events at hand and afford young readers one more way to make sense of the story. Years ago when I did some volunteer work at Hans Christian Anderson Middle School in South Minneapolis, I got to read some of these very fables to the kids, and a few even in Spanish. The experience was rewarding to both the kids and myself because I tried my hardest to perform the stories instead of merely reading them, and paid special attention to the illustrations, often saying things like “Look at that naughty fox! What is he up to?” The delighted students would offer their theories, sometimes arguing with each other, but in the end this dialogue provided depth to the stories and made them look deeper than the storyline and the curious illustrations.

Another element of this volume that I really like is the history behind it. Like “The People Could Fly,” these stories too were generated at least in part by slavery. He was freed by his masters for his learning and literary accomplishments, and Aesop’s legacy is now 2,600 years old. I think that knowing the history of these tales is important, and in my future classroom I hope that at least a brief introduction would enhance the kids’ experiences with the material.

Even though most stories are probably better when read aloud, I think that this story is perfectly suited to silent reading for any age. Compared to “The People Could Fly,” the language is clearly more accessible, direct, and simple. I am not sure if I read these tales as a child, but many of these stories I feel like I have heard before because I have a suspicion that since they are so old they have become a part of popular culture around the world. Whether a child hears the actual Aesop tale or a variant isn’t important, I don’t think, the moral message stays the same.

I couldn't help but notice that many of the moral maxims at the end of the stories sound quite religious in nature. This fact is interesting because many of Christianity’s virtues are mere reflections of most other society’s virtues, timeless values that are probably shared by most cultures. As an older reader, many of the story’s messages seem commonplace and perfectly natural and reasonable, but to a developing child this might not be the case, and hence this collection’s power.