Two spirit people fall to the earth and bake clay figures to keep them company. This picture book is based on a traditional West African story that explains how people of different colours were created.

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A beautiful African tale that depicts the creation of all humankind with a great understanding that there was not only race of people, but many different races. This tale made me smile and see that other cultures had a more advanced way of seeing beyond their own race and culture. ( )

Eric Maddern has retold a number of “pourquoi” tales for children. This one comes from West African mythology and offers an explanation for why there are people of different colors on the earth.

The story begins with Nyame, “the great sky-god” who created the earth. One day two spirit people, a male and a female, climbed out of Nyame’s mouth to enjoy the earth the sky god had made. They became lonely however, and decided to create some children out of clay. They put them in the fire to bake, but ran when Nyame came looking for them. This happened day after day until Nyame finally let them be and returned to the sky. The spirit people, Kwaku Ananse and Aso Yaa, ended up with a variety of children who had been left in the oven for different times and thus were different colors. But they were all their children, and they loved all of them equally.

The story is well-told, but what stands out about this book are the gorgeous illustrations by Frané Lessac. Her colorful goache paintings are done in a folkloric, primitive style with rich detail and vivid colors dominated by warm earth-tones.

Evaluation: This beautiful book will help children understand that porquoi stories are universally employed to explain the world, evincing a uniqueness and creativity reflecting the heritage of different cultures. The illustrator even includes a teacher’s guide for this book on her blog. Recommended for pre-schoolers. ( )

This book has great descriptions and the history of all the Native American groups broken down by the regions in which the lived. Within each section are several myths native to that group of Native Americans. This book would be ideally used in a classroom for 4th of 5th grade students. I would assign a different region to each group of 4 students in my class. I would then have the children present projects summarizing the region they were assigned and include the myth of their choice for each region. The themes covered are culture and tradition.