African Folktales at Internet Archive: Ketu, Otwe, Kojo

Yesterday I wrote about a Verna Aardema book illustrated by the great Jerry Pinkney (Rabbit Makes a Monkey of Lion), and today I wanted to look at another Verna Aardema book that is also based on a folktale from eastern Africa: What's So Funny, Ketu? A Nuer Tale. This book has illustrations by Marc Brown, and it is just a click away at the Internet Archive:

This is a classic folktale motif about what happens when a human being gains the ability to understand the language of animals. For other folktales about this same motif, see the collection by Dan Ashliman: The Language of Animals.

Verna Aardema had a very long career and she sometimes reworked the same story with different illustrators, which is the case here: before she published this edition with Marc Brown in 1982, she published the same story under the title Otwe in 1960 with illustrations by Elton Fax; it's also available at Internet Archive.

My guess is that everyone will enjoy the more contemporary illustrations by Marc Brown much more! Aardema made just a few small editorial changes to the story, but the difference in the illustrations is dramatic. Here's Elton Fax's illustration for the part about the rat, and then Marc Brown's version:

As her source for the story, Aardema used Ray Huffman's book Nuer Customs and Folklore, which was originally published in 1931. That book is not available at the Internet Archive, but we have just a few more years to wait before it enters the public domain, and then it will become widely available. The Hathi Trust already has a digital scan of the 1931 book; now it's just a matter of waiting until 2027 when books from 1931 will enter the public domain.

In the meantime, you can enjoy Aardema's retelling of this Nuer folktale about the man who understood the language of the animals, and you might also enjoy another book by Aardema with illustrations by Marc Brown: Oh, Kojo! How could you! An Ashanti Tale, which is also just a click away at Internet Archive. (And for this book, Aardema's source was Rattray's Akan-Ashanti Folktales, published in 1930, so that will be entering the public domain in 2026!)