A book like this can introduce children to a person whose contributions to music, to justice and to peace have spanned many decades and should not be forgotten.
New book reminds us of the power of song, Bernie Goedhart writes.
Bernie Goedhart, reviewing a new children’s book about Pete Seeger,
The Golden Thread: A Song for Pete Seeger Colin Meloy Illustrated by Nikki McClure Balzer & Bray Age4to8
In the stream of books that flows across my desk each year, every so often one demands to be read the minute I remove it from the box or envelope in which it’s been mailed. The Golden Thread was such a book — not only because its subject is a man whose music took root in my heart when I was a university student in the 1960s, but also because the artist who illustrated this picture book is someone whose unorthodox work I’ve admired since first encountering it out west.
So I cracked the book open immediately and whatever sounds I was making as part of my initial response alerted a colleague in a cubicle nearby.
“What are you reading?” she wanted to know.
“A book about Pete Seeger,” I said.
A pause, then her voice drifted over my cubicle wall: “Who’s Pete Seeger?”
I was momentarily shocked into silence. It was one of those vivid reminders that one is getting older — that life rolls along and one’s points of reference are not necessarily shared by a younger generation.
All the more reason for a book like this, I thought, since it can introduce children to a person whose contributions to music, to justice and to peace have spanned many decades and should not be forgotten.
Author Colin Meloy, singer and songwriter for the band The Decemberists, in composing the lyrical verse that tells the story of Pete Seeger’s life, acknowledges in a note at the end of the book that he met Seeger only once, briefly, in 2011 (when he joined the legendary singer on stage at the Newport Folk Festival) but that “it really feels like Pete Seeger has been a lifelong acquaintance of mine.
“He was there in the songs my family sang around campfires; he was there, smiling and singing, on the LP sleeves on my parents’ record shelves. He showed up in photographs of civil rights marches and union rallies; his voice was an undeniable presence in the modern environmental movement (and) I admit to having wept with patriotic pride listening to him, over the radio, lead the crowd singing This Land is Your Land at the Lincoln Memorial in 2009.”
Meloy’s opening text in
The Golden Thread is accompanied by Nikki McClure’s amazing illustration of that event.
Using a knife and two layers of paper — one black and the other a golden yellow — she depicts the elderly, bearded, tuque-wearing Seeger who was part of We Are One, the Obama inaugural celebration concert in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 18, 2009.
Cupping his hands over his ears, a joyful Seeger is shown in close-up, signing the opening lyrics of This Land is Your Land.
For the book’s final two-page spread, McClure gives us the closing lyrics of that Woody Guthrie song above a detailed view of the crowd at the National Mall, with Seeger in the far distance, arms raised as he leads the singing.
In between those double spreads, we get a taste of the impact Seeger has had on folk music, on the labour movement, on the civil rights movement (Meloy’s text talks about how Seeger transformed an old song into what became something of an anthem: We Shall Overcome) and on the environmental movement (his work on the sloop Clearwater was instrumental in cleaning up the Hudson River).
Meloy tells us about Seeger’s encounter with the House UnAmerican Activities Committee in 1955, when he was accused of being a communist, and how his refusal to answer the committee’s questions led to years of being blacklisted.
In the end, of course, Seeger triumphed: When the Smothers Brothers invited him to appear on their TV variety show, it effectively ended the blacklisting and Seeger’s public appearances continued into his 90s.
He died on Jan. 27, 2014, at the age of 94.
The Golden Thread focuses on Seeger’s music and its ability to draw people together. A two-page timeline at the end of Meloy’s text traces Seeger’s life from his birth in 1919 to his death, and a page of recommended listening provides readers with a list of recordings — both solo and with the folk groups for which he’s known: The Almanac Singers and The Weavers — that includes several albums made for children.
Throughout, McClure’s cutpaper illustrations are a perfect match for Meloy’s words.
Still, I wasn’t surprised when a librarian friend reacted to my comments about this being a beautiful book.
“Yes,” she said, “but who is it FOR?”
She was having trouble imagining little kids in her library reaching for this volume, and even I had to agree that the publisher’s target of four- to eightyear-olds seems optimistic.
But picture books are not just for little kids. This one seems best suited to sharing — between a parent and child, or a teacher and children — and is a reminder for all ages that Seeger once walked this Earth and tried to make it a better place.
“This book is meant to be read out loud and talked about,” McClure commented on her Instagram feed (instagram.com/nikkimcclure) back in April. “Pete was a part of the complicated U.S. history. Talk it over. Share Pete’s story and sing together.”