African Diaspora at Internet Archive: Diane Wolkstein

Last month, I shared a lovely book of stories from Haiti by Diane Wolkstein: The Magic Orange Tree and Other Haitian Folktales. Today I want to share three children's books that she wrote, each one featuring a  an African Diasposra story, and as you'll see, music and dancing are part of each story, directly or indirectly.

The first one is: The Cool Ride in the Sky. This is not just any African American story.... this is a story that Nat King Cole (!!!) heard from his father, who was a Baptist minister.

The illustrations are by Paul Galdone:

And here's Nat King Cole's song!

Next up is: The Little Banjo, which is a story from Haiti:

The lovely illustrations are by Marc Brown; it's a story about Goat and Tiger:

This same book was also published under the title: The Banza: A Haitian Story as part of the Reading Rainbow series, and it has some "Behind the Scenes" information and activities in the back of the book.

The last one is also from Haiti: Bouki Dances the Kokioko.

It's a Bouki and Malice story and, as you can guess, Malice is nothing but trouble! The illustrations are by Jesse Sweetwater:

So, these are all just a click away at the Internet Archive, thanks to the power of Controlled Digital Lending:

The Cool Ride in the Sky

by Diane Wolkstein

The Little Banjo

by Diane Wolkstein

Bouki Dances the Kokioko

by Diane Wolkstein