As you can see already on the title page, the illustrations are gorgeous. The landscape of Steptoe's book was inspired by the land of Zimbabwe, and the characters' names come from the Shona language (more about the Shona people and their language at Wikipedia). The story is a popular folktale that is well known throughout southern Africa; I'll have more to say about the specific source Steptoe used later this week. The book even has its own Wikipedia article, so you can find out more there too: Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters at Wikipedia.
Sadly, John Steptoe died of AIDS in 1989, only 38 years old; at the time of his death, he had written and illustrated 10 children's books and illustrated 6 more. To honor his memory, American Library Association established the John Steptoe Award for New Talent. You can find out more about his life and work at Wikipedia.
Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters is a wonderful fairy tale type of story, beautifully told and with beautiful illustrations on every page. Steptoe's daughter Bweela was the model for the good daughter:
Steptoe explains that his source for the story was a folktale from Theal's Kaffir Folk Lore of 1895, an important collection of Xhosa folktales (the insulting term "kaffir" was first used for the Xhosa people and then came to be a term of disrespect for any Black person in South Africa). Theal's book is available at Internet Archive, along with many other websites, as it is in the public domain. You can read more about the Xhosa people at Wikipedia.
The story Steptoe is using, The Story Of Five Heads, is a classic African tale-type about two sisters, one who is kind and one who is not, and how the kind girl receives her reward in the end. I included another version of this story in the Reader's Guide to African Folktales at the Internet Archive which you can read here: The Snake with Five Heads. The illustration for that version is by Helen Jacobs:
You might enjoy reading that story and then comparing it with Steptoe's version!
In addition, Steptoe's book has been adapted into a stage play. Here is a video preview:
And here is an interview with S-ankh Rasa, musical director for the theatrical production:
I also wanted to say something about the other books by John Steptoe that you can find at the Internet Archive. Although he died tragically young, he published many books, starting with his first book publication, Stevie, at age 16 in 1969. You can find Stevie and others at the Internet Archive, just a click away: books by John Steptoe at the Internet Archive.
One of my personal favorites is a book that Steptoe illustrated: Birago Diop's Mother Crocodile: An Uncle Amadou Tale from Senegal translated and adapted by Rosa Guy; you can read more about that book in another blog post.
Just look at these gorgeous illustrations by Steptoe:
To close out this post, I also wanted to say something about John Steptoe's children. His daughter Bweels (see above) is a fashion designer (check out her site!), and his son, Javaka Steptoe is a children's book author and illustrator too. You can find a few of his books at the Internet Archive; hopefully more of his work will find its way there!
You can find out more about his work at his website, and in 2017 he won the Caldecott Award for his book Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Here's a video from PBS Storytime:
So, that's my last update to this blog post for the week, and if you haven't done so already, I hope you will take a few minutes to read Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters and maybe explore some more of Steptoe's work too!
Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters
by John Steptoe
by John Steptoe
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