ALA Booklist (Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 CST 2001)

In 1986 storyteller and songwriter Seeger retold the South African folktale of the troublesome giant Abiyoyo who gobbled up villagers, and the outcast father and son who found a way to make him disappear. In this book, coauthored by writer and poet Jacobs, the fearsome monster is revived, for a new generation. When a cycle of spring flooding and summer drought threatens the safety of the village, the townspeople decide to tame the waters by building a dam. A huge boulder brings the hopeful plan to a halt, until a young girl petitions her father and grandfather to call Abiyoyo back. If we feed Abiyoyo's hunger with good food, she reasons, he won't need to eat villagers and he can help us move the enormous rock. The child's faith and determination guide the community, and the once-banished monster becomes a new citizen. A tribute to tolerance.

Horn Book (Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 CST 2002)

In this sequel to Abiyoyo, Grandpa's magic wand again brings to life the ravenous and dunderheaded giant. The story is about the value of kindness, diplomacy, and compromise. The gauzy, rainbow-hued illustrations provide a rollicking backdrop.

Kirkus Reviews

The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they've cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just "Zoop Zoop" him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo's destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: "every community must learn to manage its giants." Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)

School Library Journal (Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 CST 2001)

PreS-Gr 3 Fifteen years after the publication of Pete Seeger's Abiyoyo (S & S, 1986), the giant returns. This time, the townspeople are cutting down all the trees to build houses, and flooding results when the rains come. When they try to build a dam and run into a boulder nobody can move, the granddaughter of the magician responsible for Abiyoyo's previous disappearance convinces him to magic the big guy back. When the giant reappears in all his slobbery, stinking wonder, roaring for food, the townspeople rush to feed him. The little girl, in a ploy to get him to move the boulder, asks him if he is strong enough to do it, and he hurls it several hundred feet away. The villagers rejoice and everyone sings the now-famous song, faster and faster until, exhausted, the giant falls asleep. But they soon discover that Abiyoyo's feat has crushed the magic wand that would zap him away again, and the local folks must find a way to coexist peacefully with him. Seeger teaches several lessons in this clever if somewhat forced tale: the value of the environment, of sharing, and of the need to live with whatever "giants" are in one's life. Hays's colorful illustrations are just as wonderful as in the original tale, with the jagged-edged, overpowering monster oozing attitude from every pore. For those who felt it unfair of the town to zap away what they feared in the original book, this second installment will be a just and happy ending. Jane Marino, Scarsdale Public Library, NY