Story of the World, ch. 11: Ancient Africa

I was disappointed by the lack of resources available for this chapter. Even the books recommended in SOW itself were limited in their information. We ended up with a number of oral tradition story books, and one Schelssinger video.

African Beginnings. James Haskins and Kathleen Benson (1998). Beautiful, full page illustrations coupled with good historical information makes this volume great additional reading for any study of ancient Africa.

Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti. Gerald McDermott (1982). Fun, bright illustrations created from paper complement the traditional trickster tale of mischevious Anansi. McDermott's trickster tale books make really fun reading. We also read his Zomo the Rabbit: A Trickster from West Africa( 1996).

The Pot of Wisdom: Ananse Stories. Adwoa Badoe (2001). A nice collection of Anansi trickster tales.

The Talking Vegetables. Won-Ldy Paye and Margaret Lippert (2006). One of Calvin's favorite Anansi stories.

Anansi and the Talking Melon. Eric Kimmel (1994). Kimmel's versions of the Anansi tales, illustrated by Janet Stevens, are highly enjoyable. We read this one, and his version of Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock (1988) and I think they were Calvin's favorites. These are also available read aloud on video, old-fashioned like, with the book illustrations showing, no animation. Great for younger kids.

We also watched the Schlessinger Ancient Africa video from their Ancient Civilizations series. It was fine, but not stellar.