The Pot of Wisdom: Ananse Stories — Adwoa Badoe

Drawing on the rich vein of traditional African stories featuring the spider Ananse, Ghanaian author Adwoa Badoe and Malian illustrator Baba Wagué Diakité bring young readers a marvelously witty and entertaining collection of ten tales about this legendary spider swindler. The tales deal with important issues that everyone faces -- justice, money, marriage, vanity, self-respect, and more -- but couch the heavy lessons in lively folktales. Ananse sometimes succeeds; other times he makes a fool of himself and is ashamed -- but never for long. Many elements of these stories can be found in other trickster tales, including those of African origin like the Uncle Remus stories and those of aboriginal American groups like the Native American coyote tales and the jaguar tales of Central and South America.