African Folktales at Internet Archive: The House with No Door

Yesterday's African folklore book from the Internet Archive was pretty heavy-duty stuff (the Sierra Leone folktales told in dialect from Cronise's Cunnie Rabbit), so for today's story I've opted for something lighter: a lovely book of riddles by Brian Swann, and illustrated by Ashley Bryan (whose Beautiful Blackbird book I posted about last weekend): The House with No Door. These African riddles are just a click away with digital lending from Internet Archive!

The book is set up with riddles on pages with beautiful illustrations, and often the illustrations is providing a hint about a possible answer to the riddle — although as the author notes, there are often many answers to a riddle. In the back of the book you will find a list of possible answers to all the riddles, although with a detailed bibliography for the riddle sources. The riddles come from many different tribal traditions across Africa, and they were published in academic journals that most readers don't have access to, so Brian Swann has done people a good service by collecting riddles from those sources to include in this book.

Here's one that I like: I make long journeys flat on my back.

There's a hint in the illustration:

Can you figure it out?

(See the canoe?)

So, if you are a fan of riddles, this is highly recommended, and it would be a fun one to read with children too since the illustrations are very much worth talking about, both because they are beautiful but also because they are full of clues!

The House with No Door: African Riddle Poems

by Brian Swann and Ashley Bryan

online borrowing link