African Diaspora at Internet Archive: Under the Storyteller's Spell

I'm really excited about today's Caribbean book because it was one that has been added to the Internet Archive recently, back in March of this year. When I first started this Diaspora project back in February, I looked and looked, hoping to find this book edited by Faustin Charles at the Archive... but it was not there. When I just did an update to my inventory recently, I discovered that it is now available! Yay! Here is the book: Under the Storyteller's Spell: Folktales from the Caribbean.

In addition to editing the book, Charles contributed two of the stories: Anancy and Monkey Business, and Pierra and the La Diablesse. You will also find stories by James Berry, Grace Nichols and Petronella Breinburg here (who have been featured in earlier blog posts), along with folktales retold by 10 more Caribbean authors.

The beautiful illustrations are by Rossetta Woolf. Here is her illustration for Charles's Anancy story:

Faustin Charles, born in 1944, is a poet and novelist from Trinidad now based in London. He is best known for his children's "animal" books, which you can also find at the Archive: books by Faustin Charles. The most famous is The Selfish Crocodile. (As you can guess, the crocodile finally learns not to be selfish, and he shares the river with all the other animals.) 

So, thanks to the ongoing digitization of books at the Internet Archive, this wonderful collection of Caribbean folktales is now just a click away with Controlled Digital Lending!

Under the Storyteller's Spell:
Folktales from the Caribbean

by Faustin Charles

African Diaspora at Internet Archive: Spiderman Anancy

After yesterday's Anansi post, I promised some more Anansi today, and I'm excited to share one of my favorite Anansi books: Spiderman Anancy.

You might remember Berry's book from the African folktales project: Don't Leave an Elephant to Go and Chase a Bird, which is based on an Anansi story from Ghana.

James Berry was one of the most renowned Caribbean-born writers in England. Born in Jamaica in 1924, he emigrated to England in the 1940s, and went on to become a leading figure in the Caribbean Artists Movement. You can read more about his life and career at Wikipedia.

In this book, Berry has retold 20 Anansi stories in his brilliant, inimitable prose style. Here's a list of the titles linked to the Internet Archive: Anancy and Looking for a Wife / Anancy, Old Witch and King-Daughter / Anancy and the Making of the Bro Title / Anancy, Dog and Old Higue Dry-Skull / Monkey, Tiger and the Magic Trials / Tiger and Anancy Meet for War / Anancy and Friend / Anancy and the Hide-Away Garden / Tiger and the Stump-a-Foot Celebration Dance / Mrs. Anancy, Chicken Soup, and Anancy / Ratbat and Tacooma's Tree / Bro Tiger Goes Dead / Anancy Runs into Tiger's Trouble / Mrs. Dog First-Child and Monkey-Mother / Anancy and Storm and the Reverend Man-Cow / Anancy and Dog and Puss and Friendship / Anancy and Bad News to Cow-Mother / Mrs. Puss, Dog and Thieves / Anancy, Tiger, and the Shine-Dancer-Shine / Anancy, Lion and Tiger's Last Day.

The wonderful illustrations are by British-Nigerian artist Joseph Olubo:

Berry also published this Anansi children's book: First Palm Trees: An Anancy Spiderman Story.

This book has color illustrations by Greg Couch:

Berry is best known as a poet, and you can find many of Berry's other books at the Internet Archive too, including this book of children's poetry: A Nest Full of Stars..... which has illustrations by the late, great Ashley Bryan! You'll recognize his very distinctive style here, and for more about Bryan, see this post from just after his death earlier this month: 

So, for Anancy and more by James Berry, the Internet Archive awaits you:

Spiderman Anancy

 First Palm Trees:
n Anancy Spiderman Story

A Nest Full of Stars

Africa at the Internet Archive: Village of Round and Square Houses

The post from yesterday was all about Caldecott winners, and I've got another Caldecott Medal book for today: The Village of Round and Square Houses, written and illustrated by Ann Grifalconi, which won Caldecott Honors in 1987:

The story was inspired by a trip Grifalconi made to Cameroon and a folktale that she heard in a village located in the foothills of one of the volcanoes of Cameroon; you can find out more about the Cameroon line of volcanoes at Wikipedia. 

The "story-within-the-story" of Grifalconi's book is about a volcanic eruption of long ago... and compare the 1986 disaster at Lake Nyos in the same region of Cameroon. In the village of Grifalconi's book, the people survived, but the village was changed forever:

Grifalconi wrote two more books about this same village: Darkness and the Butterfly and Osa's Pride, both of which are available at Internet Archive.

 
She also did the illustrations for James Berry's book, Don't Leave an Elephant to Go and Chase a Bird, which is based on an Anansi story from Ghana.

I really like the way Grifalconi has depicted Anansi in this book! He's not quite human but not exactly a spider either:

Ann Grifalconi was born in 1929, and died just last year, in 2020. You can find out more about her life and career at Wikipedia; here is her obituary in the New York Times. In addition to being an artist and writer, she was also a highly successful business woman and political activist; for example, she was a founding board member of New York Feminist Credit Union in the 1970s. I love her re-vision of Michelangelo: And God Created Woman in Her Own Image.

In this post, I've focused on Grifalconi's Africa-themed books, but she also wrote many other books, including some wonderful books on African American subjects; you can browse the Internet Archive for more:

So, welcome to the world of Grifalconi's art and her words; there is lots of enjoy and learn from here.

The Village of Round and Square Houses

by Ann Grifalconi