The Pot of Wisdom: Ananse stories

This little book contains a fantastic, fun collection of Ananse stories that are as delightful as they are thought-provoking. The trickster tales are definitely worth sharing with any class that is studying African culture, folklore, storytelling, universal themes, etc. Black & White as well as color illustrations compliment the stories and add some unique cultural flavor. Here's the list of included stories and my brief comment on each: Why Ananse Lives On The Ceiling: This story reminds me of the Tar Baby tale! Ananse's sons try to outwit a thief and receive a surprise...guess who! Ananse and the Feeding Pot: This is my favorite story. Greedy, jealous Ananse tries to grab some glory for himself after his son's successful adventure in acquiring food for the village. Ananse Becomes the Owner of Stories: Ananse wants to be remembered and sung as one of the culture's great heroes. To do this, he sets out to possess all the best stories. (This story is very similar to "Anansi Does the Impossible: An Ashanti Tale" by Verna Aardema.) Ananse, the Even-handed Judge: Ananse receives two invitations to two important life events. How can he fulfill both appointments? (This story is similar to "Anansi Goes to Lunch" by Bobby & Sherry Norfolk.) Ananse, the Forgetful Guest: The wily spider must wriggle his way out of his own web of lies in order to save face and not offend his royal host. The Mat Confidences: Ananse wins a prized wife through cleverness. Can he keep her when she learns the truth? Ananse and the Pot of Wisdom: The Prideful spider learns a valuable lesson about bragging and self-importance. Ananse and the Singing Cloak: Chameleon seeks to teach the greedy spider a lesson after Ananse lays designs on and captures his farm. Why Pig Has A Short Snout: Ananse wriggles out of his debt to Pig. Ananse and the Birds: The spider decides to learn to fly, but the surprised birds are so thrilled about him!

This is an amazing collection of stories! Each story only has one picture at the beginning, so it's good for students/children to practice visualization skills as well as listening skills. I was surprised by the academic word choices, which allowed for me to introduce many new words (with body movements) to my students. My students (and I) were hooked after the first story, "Why Ananse Lives On The Ceiling." All throughout the week my students were re-enacting scenes from the story, and asking me questions, "Remember when Ananse was bad and got stuck in the tar?" I'm also using the story, "Ananse and the Feeding Pot" with a group of 6th grade students to create a puppet show for my kindergarteners. It's wonderful to see older students' excitement as they read the stories and prepare their own version for the kindergartners. I highly recommend this book as a read-aloud for children to develop academic vocabulary, learn cultural tales (and about cultural differences and similarities), and to develop a love for reading trickster tales.

So am being picky here. I bought this book to read to my son. I grew up listening to Ananse stories it was one of my favorite stories before bed time and so when I got this copy, the wording is a bit different. I guess every story is being updated. It has a good cover, nice clean white pages, easy to flip (am prone to paper cuts 🙈) Good font, Easy to read for both kids and adults.

A great collection of some of the most well known Anansi stories (and a couple new ones for me). If this is to be used with younger grades/children, be prepared that the language is more academic than other storybooks, and the picture to text ratio is about one main cover picture for every 3 pages (it's one per story and each story is about that long). I used this in my third grade classroom and while we had to discuss the definitions of a couple words, they LOVED the stories! The length of text is about right for their attention span if not accompanied by more pictures, but what I loved best is that the author is actually from Ghana so it makes for a great compare/contrast piece!

One of my favorite books

Good book for kids

Often time we give our children stories that do not relate to them and we try to make our children relate to the stories. Here the stories relate us back and tie us back to on of our cultural practices in Afrika. Very good book!!! My son's enjoy the stories.

The story and the setting of the story

I bought this book to read to my children so they can experience West African culture and learn some life lessons from the misadventures of Kweku Anansi. I grew up listening to these stories and have always wanted to read them to my kids. Very funny and interesting book.

Bought as a gift but if the stories are like from my childhood it’s going to be fantastic

This is an amazing book. Several short stories that made me laugh and think. A must have book for every lover of stories.

Funny

Love this book the stories are longer and require an animated storyteller but great translations from the original language