What the Dillons did for the illustrations is really ingenious: they have re-imagined the story as a tale told by people in a Maasai village, wearing masks for the different characters. The story opens in the village as people assemble for the performance:
Then the performers put on their masks:
The story is narrated at the top of the page, with the action being shown below:
It's quite exceptional; I haven't seen anything quite like this before in the children's books that I've reviewed so far this summer. Beautiful, and something you can study in close detail, and also a great topic of conversation if you are reading the book with a child.
This story originally appeared in one of Verna Aardema's earlier story collections: Tales for the Third Ear from Equatorial Africa, where it was titled "The Long One." That book is also available at Internet Archive; it contains nine stories, with art by Ib Ohlsson, a Danish artist who is probably best known for his illustrations in the "Encyclopedia Brown" series.
Here are his illustrations for the story; it's very charming, but nothing to compare to the creative interpretation by the Dillons IMO.
Meanwhile, Aardema's source for the story is a book I featured in an earlier post:
Alfred Hollis's The Masai: Their Language and Folklore.
Here's that story: The Caterpillar and the Wild Animals. This is how it begins:
So, that is today's book with artwork by the amazing Dillons, and I'll be back with another book illustrated by the Dillons tomorrow. Meanwhile, enjoy!
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