Africa at the Internet Archive: Caldecott Winners

Starting off Week 33 (!) of African folklore books that are just a click away at the Internet Archive, I wanted to share a classic children's book: A Story, A Story: An African Tale, written and illustrated by Gail Haley:

This book was published in 1970, and it is a Caldecott Medal winner. You can see why; the illustrations for this Anansi story are beautiful. Haley has opted to depict Anansi in his human form; here he is with Leopard.

In aiming to convey the African storytelling style, Haley also uses ideophones, as here when Anansi is running "yiridi yiridi yiridi" along the path. Ideophones are a widespread and highly distinctive feature of African storytelling performance, but they are often left out of written versions of the stories, so it is really nice to see/hear that here. You can find out more about ideophones at Wikipedia.

So, for both the writing and the art, Haley's book is a great experience, and it is also an excuse to review here some past blog posts about other African-themed books that have also received Caldecott medals or honors:

Why the Sun and the Moon Live in the Sky:

An African Folktale

by Blair Lent

Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti

by Gerald McDermott

Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions

by Margaret Musgrove

illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon

Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters

by John Steptoe

I'll be back tomorrow to share another Caldecott award-winning book that I have not blogged about here yet. Meanwhile, you've got all these lovely books to enjoy!

 A Story, A Story: An African Tale

by Gail Haley