Dialect

 Toni Cade Bambara's use of dialect has been highly praised by readers and critics. Her ability to capture the cadences and languages of rural Southern black speech has been equated with Mark Twain's ability to capture the dialects of nineteenth-century American speech.

The informal and conversational tone of "Blues Ain't No Mockin Bird" allows the narrator to "talk" to us in her own voice, and her figurative language conveys as much of the story's themes as any action of the plot. When the twins ask Granny what happened to the man who was going to jump off the bridge, the narrator reports: "And Granny just stared at the twins till their faces swallow up the eager and they don't even care any more about the man jumpin." The image of the faces of the young boys "swallow[ing] up the eager" brilliantly conveys a complex psychological process...