Africa at the Internet Archive: Bury My Bones

I've been writing about anthologies of African folktales this week, and the anthology I want to feature today is a book published in 1994: Bury My Bones But Keep My Words: African Tales for Retelling by Tony Fairman, and it's just a click away at the Internet Archive.

As you can see from the table of contents, the stories come from across Africa, and Fairman provides information about his sources in the bibliography; some of the stories are adapted from previous publications while others are stories that Fairman himself heard from African storytellers:

As you can tell from the book's subtitle, "African tales for retelling," Fairman intends this book especially for use in schools, and he includes notes for teachers in how to help students engage in their own storytelling activities. That was the practice I always used in my mythology and folklore classes (instead of writing essays, students wrote stories inspired by the reading we did in class), and I can endorse it highly: one of the best ways to learn about a story is to think about how you would retell it in your own way. And you don't have to be a student in school to practice retelling stories; it's something we can all do... and we all should do, as Fairman explains here in the Introduction to the book:

The illustrations are by Meshack Asare, who is in turn an award-winning children's book author and illustrator from Ghana. You can find out more about his work at Wikipedia, and also in this profile of Neustadt prize-winners in children's literature: NSK Neustadt Prize Laureate Meshack Asare, and you can listen to an interview with him at the KGOU radio station recorded after his Neustadt award.

The illustrations Asare did for this book really add to the drama of the story as you can see:

One of Asare's books is available at Internet Archive too! It's not folklore, but is a book that might be of interest to readers of this blog: the book is Sosu's Call and it is the Winner of the 1999 UNESCO prize and IBBY's Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities award. The story is about a boy who cannot walk, yet he is the one who saves the people of his village when disaster is about to strike. 

So, if you are in the mood for folktales (I am always in the mood for folktales), you can check out Tony Fairman's book with illustrations by Meshack Asare... and if you are in the mood for a contemporary story with a powerful message, Meshack Asare's own book awaits you, both just a click away at Internet Archive!

Bury My Bones But Keep My Words:

African Tales for Retelling

by Tony Fairman