African Diaspora at Internet Archive: Bobby and Sherry Norfolk

When I was posting about African folktales, I included a book by Bobby and Sherry Norfolk based on a wonderful Anansi story, with illustrations by Baird Hoffmire: Anansi and the Pot of Beans. For today's post, I want to follow up on that with three more books by Bobby and Sherry Norfolk, each based on Anansi stories, and all illustrated by Baird Hoffmire.

The first one is Anansi and the Tug o' War:

You'll recognize this as one of the most widespread African trickster tales, sometimes told about Anansi, or Rabbit, or Tortoise, and with various big animals being tricked into the tugging. In this case, the story is about Anansi tricking Elephant and Killer Whale, as you can see:

The next book is Anansi Goes to Lunch:

This is another famous Anansi story, which explains how "spider" got such a narrow waist... it's all from being greedy of course! In this version of the story, he is trying to attend all the different lunches that the animals invite him to. Here's zebra, for example:

And the last one is Anansi and Turtle Go to Dinner:

This is yet another famous trickster-versus-trickster African folktale type... yes, Anansi manages to trick Turtle, but you know that Turtle is going to get his revenge!

So, I'll be back with more about storytellers Bobby and Sherry Norfolk tomorrow (if you're curious, you can find out more now at Wikipedia); for now, enjoy the stories!

 Anansi and the Tug o' War

by Bobby and Sherry Norfolk

Anansi Goes to Lunch

by Bobby and Sherry Norfolk

Anansi and Turtle Go to Dinner

by Bobby and Sherry Norfolk