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Abiyoyo Story Arts
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Abiyoyo Cover art by Michael Hays ©2010

Pete Seeger’s storysong, made up for his own children, finds it’s perfect match in Michael Hays’s masterful paintings.

As a special bonus, a new edition includes a CD of Pete performing two different versions of “Abiyoyo.” You’ll love to follow and sing along as you listen to Pete tell this richly vivid and exciting story.

Pete Seeger has been a storyteller for fifty years and has written such songs as “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” “Turn, Turn, Turn,” and with Lee Hays, “If I Had a Hammer.” Pete still lives with his wife, Toshi, near Beacon New York.


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Abiyoyo

by Pete Seeger
illustrated by Michael Hays

Simon and Schuster 1986

Once there was a little boy who played the ukelele. Wherever he’d go he’d play, Clink, clonk, clunk. His father was a magician. Wherever he’d go, he’d make things disappear, Zoop! Zoop! Soon the townspeople grew tired of the boy’s noise and the father’s tricks, and banished both of them to the edge of town.

There they lived, until one day the terrible giant Abiyoyo appeared. He was as tall as a tree, and it was said that he could eat people up. Everyone was terrified, except the boy and his father, and they came up with a plan to save the town...

Pete Seeger published the first edition of Abiyoyo, his storysong picture book illustrated by Michael Hays, in 1986. That year the PBS TV show “Reading Rainbow” featured Abiyoyo. Pete Seeger appeared live on the studio set with LeVar Burton and recorded a new narration for his storysong for this popular episode.

Scholastic Publishers marketed a school edition to students and Big Book edition for teachers, eventually selling a million copies of Abiyoyo. Foreign editions of Abiyoyo included Swedish and Japanese language editions. In 1992 Macmillan was acquired by Simon and Schuster and they continue to publish several editions. In 2002 PBS’s “Between the Lions” TV program featured a digitally animated version of Michael’s Abiyoyo art.

Simon and Schuster publishes an Aladdin mass market softcover edition of Abiyoyo and a Books On The Go mini-edition. The current Simon and Schuster hardcover edition of Abiyoyo is marketed with a Pete Seeger audio CD. Rumor has it that an eBook edition of Abiyoyo will be available soon.

Buy the Abiyoyo book with audio CD in my Abiyoyo Amazon store.