Book Review of Anansi and the Talking Melon

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kimmel, Eric. 1994. ANANSI AND THE TALKING MELON. Ill. by Janet Stevens.  

New York, NY: Holiday House. ISBN 0823411044

 

PLOT SUMMARY

Anansi the Spider gets inside one of Elephant’s melons to eat it. Once inside, Anansi decides to trick Elephant into thinking the melon can talk. Elephant decides to show the “talking” melon to the king. Along the way, other animals join in to go to the king with Elephant and the “talking” melon. When they get to the king, Anansi insults the king. The king angrily throws the melon all the way back to Elephant’s house. Elephant returns to his home and tells the melons he will not listen to them anymore. Anansi answers him from a “talking” banana where he is hiding from Elephant near the melons.      

 

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

This story is a traditional “trickster” story, specifically from the African region. Anansi is the archetype of the “trickster.” The plot revolves around a spider who outwits much larger and dangerous animals. Like many traditional tales, the story includes a journey. Readers are taught that having and using brains are always preferable to brawn.

 

Janet Stevens’ illustrations are bright, vibrant, colorful, and brilliant. Her anthropomorphic depictions of these African inhabitants help the reader understand the text. The picture of the hippo relaxing in a lawn chair reading a book humanizes the story. The images of the animals becoming angry as Anansi tricks them reinforces the story and moves it along to its culmination.  

 

 

AWARDS AND REVIEW EXCERPTS

KIRKUS: “Steven’s funny animals are delightfully expressive, while Anansi’s spider-level perspectives provide generous close-ups of melons, a hippo, a warthog, et al. Good-spirited tomfoolery, with storytelling that reels along with the ease of a seasoned prankster.”

SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL: “The snappy narrative is well suited for individual reading or group sharing. The colorful line-and-wash illustrations are filled with movement and playful energy.”

 

 

CONNECTIONS

* This book lends itself to discussions of brains over brawn and the power of quick thinking.

 

* Other books like this one include Eric Kimmel’s two prior Anansi books, ANANSI AND THE MOSS-COVERED ROCK and ANANSI GOES FISHING. Also, there are “trickster” stories in other cultures around the world. Gerald McDermott’s COYOTE: A TRICKSTER TALE FROM THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST is a great example of a trickster tale in the Native American tradition.   

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
      Infographics                 Infographics is a method of conveying information in a concise and eye-catching way. In various incarnations, infographics can be traced as far back as the beginning of book illustrations. One such example is the illustration of “sunspots in  Rosa Ursina sive Sol , an illustrated astronomical text published by Christoph Scheiner in 1626 . ” (Evers, 2015) Another example of infographics from the 1600’s was Galileo Galilei’s Sidereus Nuncius , published in 1610. Galilei’s work used infographics to share information about Earth’s moon, the moons of Saturn, and various constellations. Thus, it can be argued that the use of infographics is 400 years old. Some have argued that infographics goes back as far as prehistoric cave paintings or Egyptian hieroglyphs, but I prefer to limit our historical identification of the usage of infographics to the post-Gutenberg press era, from the 1400’s onward. The term infographic comes from combining the t
Read more
  REVIEW OF A BIG BED FOR LITTLE SNOW   A. BIBLIOGRAPHY Lin, Grace. 2019. A BIG BED FOR LITTLE SNOW . New York City, NY: Little, Brown Books For Young Readers. ISBN 9780316478366.   B. PLOT SUMMARY At the beginning of the winter season, a boy named Little Snow gets a new bed made for him by his mother. She reminds him that it is for sleeping on, not for jumping on. He agrees to sleep on the bed, not jump on it. That night, after his mother left from tucking him in, Little Snow started jumping on his bed. When he heard his mother coming back, he lay down and pretended he hadn’t been doing anything. The next morning, after he had woken up, he decided to jump on his bed some more. When he heard his mother coming, he laid back down and pretended he hadn’t been jumping on his bed. That winter, Little Snow enjoyed jumping on his bed whenever his mother was not around. One time when he was jumping on his bed, when he landed on it he made a rip in it. Whenever he jumped on
Read more