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: Stories from the Caribbean

Carrying on with the Caribbean theme this week, here is a fun book of Caribbean folktales for young readers, or readers of any age! Stories from the Caribbean by Petronella Breinburg.

You can see already from the table of contents that the book has a fun design:

The illustrations are by Syrah Arnold and Tina Barber; here's their art for the story of "Bre-nancy and the 13 Plantains."

This book is part of a series, and you can find ALL the other books from the series at the Internet Archive, all with great stories and great design:

Stories from West Africa

by Robert Hull

Stories from India

by Vayu Naidu

Stories from China

by Saviour Pirotta

Stories from the Amazon

by Saviour Pirotta

Stories from Native North America

by Linda Raczek

So, enjoy the Caribbean stories, and maybe you'll want to check out the rest of the series too!

Stories from the Caribbean

by Petronella Breinburg