Big Jabe
By Jerdine Nolen with illustrator Kadir Nelson

       The Bible story of Moses being pulled from the bulrushes gets a uniquely folk twist in this tall tale of a baby named Big Jabe who rows rapidly into a giant on a Southern cotton plantation. King Cotton is no match for Big Jabe. Nor is Mr. Sorenson, the overseer at the Plenty Plantation, or the eponymous Mr. Plenty, whose slave labor hasn’t helped his fortunes. However, when Big Jabe arrives, he does enough work for the plantations worth of slaves. Which suits Mr. Plenty and Mr. Sorenson well…until there’s a fly in the sweet tea. Seems the slaves have an easier life as well, not a happy thought if you’re a hard-driving respectable gentleman landowner in the South.

       But like John Coffey in The Green Mile crossed with Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan, Big Jabe has other powers. One day, the slaves just start disappearing, including Addy, the girl who originally fishes the infant Big Jabe out of the river. Addy’s to blame for all the plantation’s troubles, says Simon Legree. But Big Jabe doesn’t tell old Pharaoh to let his people go, he makes his own magic happen. Or perhaps, as in John Coffey’s case, it’s a miracle meant to happen, much like the parting of the Red Sea. There’s a hint of Christ imagery in the way Big Jabe causes fish to fill Addy’s carts.

        Kadir Nelson’s beautiful, realistic, vivid human illustrations capture the period, the setting, the wonder and the magic of Big Jabe. The labor of the slaves, the astonishment on Addy’s face when she discovers Big Jabe in the river, and the quiet dignified profile of Addy in chains add a human element to this tale of magic, in which Big Jabe is shown carrying an impossibly large sack of cotton on his back. With his feats, Big Jabe also reminds one of Krishna as a boy. The powerful antislavery message could not have a better children’s fiction spokesman than the giant-of-heart Big Jabe. Fiction, with its hyperboles and suspension of disbelief, often is truer than truth, and Big Jabe. rings with sincerity.