The Golden Thread: A Song for Pete Seeger by Colin Meloy (review)

Kids with nascent interest in environmentalism, labor activism, American folk music, and banjo-totin’ vagabonds will eventually find that their interests lead to Pete Seeger, whose career, which lasted over seven decades and spanned two centuries, etched his name on pop music charts and in history books. Biographical highlights flow through Meloy’s rhyming text, which reads less like poetry than like song lyrics in the picked, strummed, sung, and talked delivery that marked Seeger’s style. An appended timeline will assist biography readers to make sense of the whole, but the kids most likely to appreciate the title are those who are familiar with Seeger’s sound and who are able to catch and apply Meloy’s cadence. McClure’s black and gold cut-paper artwork boasts a muscular historicity, nodding to a past era of woodcuts while drawing viewers right up to the Lincoln Memorial concert for President Obama’s inauguration. Sources for quoted lyrics, a discography, and author and artist notes are included.