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Greedy Spider

Allfolktales.com reviews Greedy Spider by Bakeh N. Wleh Nagbe, Sr. and illustrated by Dr. Melvin J. Carver

Greedy Spider is a children's picture book based on a Liberian folktale about a spider who accepted multiple invitations to Thanksgiving dinners, dreaming of eating at every single one but instead, had to deal with the consequences. Greedy Spider, like most African folktales teaches a moral, in this case, that greed is not good.

The spider is called sakontant by the Kru tribe of Liberia and according to the author, this is one of the stories his grandfather narrated to all the children in the village of Nyantro. It is fortunate that the author has captured this memory in a book that can be read by kids and I would like to encourage him to write more of the stories he remembers.

The large text font and bold illustrations made it very easy for kids to follow the story. My six year old daughter read the book and she enjoyed the illustrations. She also explained to me that the spider with the wide grin was not a real spider and pointed out the page that had an illustration of a real spider. There is an abstract-like illustration of a hut on one of the pages which I kept going back to, trying to visualize the author as a little boy, sitting around with all the village kids, listening to his grandfather's stories.

As we just celebrated Thanksgiving here in the US, I couldn't help but wonder if the referenced Thanksgiving in the story is similar to the US Thanksgiving since Liberia was colonized by America, unlike most African countries. A quick search revealed that one of the traditions they inherited from the American colonists was Thanksgiving, which is celebrated in Liberia every first Thursday of November.

To purchase the book, go to www.xlibris.com/GreedySpider.html or www.xlibris.com/Nagbe.html

Google Books has a few preview pages availables.

To receive a discount on your purchase, contact the author at (919)620-9645 or P.O.Box 25309, Durham, NC 27702 USA.
Receive $1 off your 1st purchase or $5 off for 5 books;
30% off for schools, libraries and churches.

 

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