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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