The Golden Thread: A Song for Pete Seeger

A stunning picture book biography of the legendary folk musician, labor and civil rights activist, and environmentalist Pete Seeger from New York Times bestselling author Colin Meloy and beloved cut-paper artist Nikki McClure

Pete Seeger once sang that if he had a golden thread, he would use it to weave people from all over the world to one another. That golden thread, for Pete, was music.

Born into a family of traveling musicians, Pete picked up his first instrument at age seven. From then on, music was his life, whether he was playing banjo for soldiers during World War II, rallying civil rights activists and war protesters with songs such as “We Shall Overcome,” “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” and “If I Had a Hammer,” or leading environmental efforts to clean up the Hudson River.

With dazzling, lyrical verse in the folk revival style and cut-paper illustrations in black and ochre that capture the spirit of the man and his times, Colin Meloy and Nikki McClure pay tribute to a visionary who changed the world with song.

About the Authors

Colin Meloy is the writer of the bestselling Wildwood Chronicles and the singer-songwriter for the band the Decemberists. He once joined Pete Seeger onstage, singing American folk standards at the Newport Folk Festival in 2011; it was so cool. He lives just outside of Portland, OR, with his family. This is his first picture book.

Nikki McClure is an artist and writer who lives with her husband and son in Olympia, WA. She is the author-illustrator of a number of acclaimed picture books, including Waiting for High Tide, In, Collect Raindrops, and The Great Chicken Escape, and she is the illustrator of All in a Day by Cynthia Rylant and May the Stars Drip Down by Jeremy Chatelain.