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But what is the song all about? Is it a nonsense song? Is is a dance tune? Why would anybody call a feather "macaroni"? Steven Kellogg answers many of these questions and gives young readers lots of adventure as well in the pages of his new Yankee Doodle.
The words of the song are the only text in the book, but there's much more to the story in Kellogg's humorous, warm, full-of-detail pictures-farmers bringing barrels of food and ale into camp, battalions of men marching, flags (with only 13 stars) flying in almost every picture. Yankee Doodle, a young boy in this story, and his dog Jemima go down with his father to the colonist's camp but are sent home when he wants the feather in Captain Washington's hat.
In the final two pages, Kellogg's note about the origins of the song gives several possibilities. It was sung by the British at the beginning of the Revolution to poke fun at the colonists, but the lyrics we know today are attributed to Edward Bangs, a student at Harvard College and one of the minutemen at the Battle of Lexington. Thus the Americans turned the ridicule of the British to their advantage in the song as they did in the war.
Steven Kellogg has certainly given the song many more years of popularity for young picture book enthusiasts in his rendition of Yankee Doodle.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.