African Folktales at Internet Archive: How Many Spots Does a Leopard Have?

After writing about Ashley Bryan yesterday, I knew I wanted to write about another remarkable African American children's author today: Julius Lester. He is the author of the astounding (I mean: ASTOUNDING) Brer Rabbit books illustrated by Jerry Pinkney (I will have lots to say about those books in the future!)... but today I want to write about Lester's collection of African folktales called How Many Spots Does a Leopard Have? ... it's available for borrowing from the Internet Archive, just a click away!

In this book, first published in 1989, Julius Lester drew on both African and on Jewish sources for the stories, which reflects his own fascinating life journey. Upon learning that his great-grandfather was a Jewish man who had married a freed slave, Lester began learning about Judaism, and in 1982 he converted. You can read more about this at Wikipedia, and here: Iconic Black Jewish Writer Julius Lester Should Be on Every Parent’s Radar.

So, in this book, Lester has told 9 African stories, 2 Jewish stories, and also a story in which he combines African and Jewish folktales into a new story of his own invention. He provides notes and bibliography for his sources in the back of the book. (I will profile some of the sources he used in future posts.) The illustrations are by David Shannon.

The title story of the book comes next-to-last; it is based on an Ngoni story from southern Africa that Lester found in Elliot's Long Grass Whispers, which is not available at Internet Archive but which is available at Hathi Trust (it's an excellent book also). Here's a quick summary of the story, but you should click and read Lester's version; it is perfectly charming!

Leopard was admiring his own beautiful reflection when Crocodile rose up out of the water and mocked Leopard's vanity. Leopard, however, was not fazed; instead, he asked Crocodile to please count his spots so he could know exactly how beautiful he was. Crocodile refused and plunged back into the water. Leopard was so eager to know the number of his spots that he offered a prize to the animal who could count them all. Weasel tried, but could only count to four. Elephant tried, but he after he reached ten, he had to start with one again; he muddled his way through the teens and then announced that Leopard had more than twenty spots. Bear was able to count quite high, up to thirty and beyond, but he kept interrupting himself with questions and observations along the way and had to keep starting over. Finally, Rabbit offered to solve the problem. He touched one spot and said, "This one is dark." Then another. "This one, however, is light." "Dark, light, dark, light, light, dark, dark, dark" and so on. Finally Rabbit had touched every spot on Leopard's whole body. "Two spots!" he said. "Light and dark." Leopard knew somehow that this was not right, since he was sure he had more than two spots, but no one knew how to show Rabbit was wrong. So, Rabbit won! The prize? A portrait of Leopard!

illustration by David Shannon

And of course that is just one story... go read the rest! They are just a click away, thanks to Internet Archive's digital lending library:

How Many Spots Does a Leopard Have? by Julius Lester

online-borrowing link