A Story, a Story

Winner of the Caldecott Medal

Once, all the stories in the world belonged to Nyame, the Sky God. He kept them in a box beside his throne. But Ananse, the Spider man, wanted them — and caught three sly creatures to get them.

This story of how we got our own stories to tell is adapted from an African folktale.

Recounts how most African folk tales came to be called "Spider Stories."

Once, all the stories in the world belonged to Nyame, the Sky God. He kept them in a box beside his throne. But Ananse, the Spider man, wanted them--and caught three sly creatures to get them.

Publishers Weekly

The Caldecott Medal-winning African folktale of how Ananse took all the stories in the world from Nyame, the Sky God. Ages 4-8. (March)

Gail E. Haley is a young but prolific author and illustrator. She has fourteen books to her credit, in addition to illustrating her husband's syndicated newspaper column, "Parents and Children." Miss Haley is the mother of two children — Marguerite, age tow, and another born shortly after she completed this book.

The idea for this book came to Miss Haley as a result of living in the Caribbean. There she found stories in which tigers and leopards appeared. These, happily, are not part of the Caribbean fauna. And so she traced the origins of these stories back to their sources in Africa. She studied African folklore and culture in preparation for writing and illustrating this book, and to capture the flavor of the languages, the people, their customs and life styles.

The woodcuts that illustrate this book were cut and printed by Miss Haley in her own print shop. She lives and works in New York with her family, surrounded by a large collection of early children's books, toys and games, cut outs and dolls, going back to the seventeenth century.