Reading Diary A: West African Folktales

For this week's reading unit, I decided to focus on the West African Folktales. When choosing what to read, the notes at the beginning caught my attention. I've heard of Anansi the Spider before, so I figured I'd check it out and see what other kinds of tricks he was up to.

I thought the short story Anansi and Nothing was really interesting because it had kind of a different style of plot. At first, I thought the story would end with a moral such as "Don't judge a book by it's cover," based on series of events that both Anansi and Nothing experience. Anansi thinks that by tricking Nothing, he will be able to convince his wives that he is from riches; however, near the middle of the story, his little plan backfires. His wives are mad that Anansi doesn't have an immaculate palace like Nothing does. I found the ending, although it was a tad bid morbid, somewhat funny. The death of Nothing was violent and a bit over the top, but I thought the explanation for why children often cry was "over Nothing" was very clever and funny.

Another story I really enjoyed was Why We See Ants Carrying Bundles as Big as Themselves. It's interesting because growing up, kids always ask the "why" questions, and most of the stories are created in order to give some sort of explanation as to why something "is the way it is". I will admit that at the beginning of the story, I was really confused as to where it would be headed. However, as soon as I realized that Kweku Tsin had out-tricked his trickster father, I realized, "Ahh, the body of the dwarf must be this 'large bundle'."

(Anansi the Storyteller)