The book I will start with is not in actual Gullah; instead, this is a lovely children's book in which some stories originally recorded in Gullah (see below) have been retold in literary English for a young audience: Bo Rabbit Smart for True: Folktales From the Gullah by Priscilla Jaquith.
The book cover has a fun design; here's what it looks like with the spine and inside flap:
There are 4 stories here: Bo Rabbit Smart for True / Alligator's Sunday Suit / Bo Rabbit's Hide-and-Seek / Rattlesnake's Word, with notes on each story in the back, plus a detailed bibliography.
The illustrations are by Ed Young, and they are done in a kind of cartoon style, with each story illustrated by a series of small panels. Here's what a typical page looks like; you can see Bo Rabbit here with Elephant (and yes, this is a famous African story; there are no elephants on the Sea Islands... but there are stories about elephants!).
As you can see from the book's title with the Gullah idiom "for true" there, even though the stories have been retold in literary English there is still some sense of their Gullah origins, with "Bo" instead of "Brer" as the term of address among the animals, including the notorious trickster, Bo Rabbit.
Meanwhile, you can actually listen to the stories that Jaquith used as her source; the recordings are at the Internet Archive too! The recordings were made by Albert H. Stoddard, who was born in 1872 and grew up on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina. In 1948, he went to the Library of Congress and asked them to record his readings of Gullah stories he had learned: Animal Tales Told In The Gullah Dialect, record 1 - record 2 - record 3.
Here is a list of the specific stories, linked to those specific tracks on the album: How Buh Houn Got His Long Mouth / How Buh Houn Git E Long Tongue / How Buh Wasp Gets His Small Waist / How Buh Buzzut Lost de Fedder on E Head / How Buh Tarrapin Git E Ma'kin / A'Allgetter Sees Trouble / Buh Rabbit Fools B'Olifaum and Buh Whale / The Tar Baby / Sneak Een E Buzzom / Man Git E Adam Apple / Buh Partridge Outhides Buh Rabbit / Buh Black Sneak Git Ketch / Buh Rabbit Berry Lub Peas / Buh Rabbit Want No Acknowledge / Buh Rabbit Eats Buh Fox's Butter / Buh Deer and Buh Rabbit Race / Cow Tail een de Ma-a-ash / Buh Rabbit and Buh Wolf Go Hunting / Grandaddy Ridin' Hoss / E Might Ober Run de Law / Dat Cow Done Pizen / Long Bill Duh Good Ting / Don't Trus Buh Rattlesneak Wud / Buh Wolf Lone Gat Chillum / Open Yo Mout B'Allegetter / Buh Fox and Buh Rooster / Uh Done Kill B'Allegetter / Buh Rabbit Loses His Head.
The texts were later published in a book entitled Gullah Animal Tales from Daufuskie Island, South Carolina, but that book is not at the Internet Archive, although you can find used copies at online booksellers.
So, I hope you will enjoy reading and/or listening to the adventures of the Gullah Bo Rabbit and his tricks!
by Priscilla Jaquith
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