Yesterday I shared three books from Richardo Keens-Douglas, a storyteller and author from Grenada, and I have some more of his books to share today. The first one is an Anansi story: Anancy and the Haunted House.
The illustrations are by Stephane Jorisch, who also did the illustrations for The Trial of the Stone: A Folktale (see yesterday's blog post). Here you can see Anansi and the little spiders. It is always fascinating to see how artists depict Anansi; this Anansi is very spider-y!
The next one is The Nutmeg Princess, which is the first children's book that Keens-Douglas published.
With this story, I am not quite sure if it is a traditional folktale or a creative story in folktale style. Either way, nutmeg is a distinctive feature of Grenada (it is a "spice island" of the Caribbean), and the story is beautifully told, with beautiful illustrations by Annouchka Galouchko.
There's also a Spanish translation at the Archive too: El Misterio de la Isla de las Especias.
The same is true of this third book, which is a very moving story of the Middle Passage: Freedom Child of the Sea.
The powerful illustrations are by Julia Gukova. Here is a close-up from the remarkable scene of the slaves held captive on the ship:
The legend here reminds me a lot of another book I've blogged about here: Kim Siegelson's In the Time of the Drums.
Siegelson's book is based on a Gullah legend (as she explains in an author's note at the back of the book). In this book by Keens-Douglas, I am not sure if this is a traditional legend or a piece of creative writing, but either way it resonates powerfully between past and present.
So, between yesterday's post and today's books, you have a treasure-trove of books from Grenada, all just a click away at the Internet Archive, thanks to the power of Controlled Digital Lending.
by Richardo Keens-Douglas
by Richardo Keens-Douglas
by Richardo Keens-Douglas
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