I Found A Golden Story

A Story, A Story

Published by Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing

An African Tale Retold and Illustrated by Gail E. Haley

*Recipient of the 1971 Caldecott Medal*

 This book would be a great teaching tool in a kindergarten or first grade classroom to stimulate class discussion, inferences, and reflections, and there are a number of activity based resources available on the internet.  Some of the best that I found focus on group and individual prediction formation (http://www.teachervision.fen.com/skill-builder/lesson-plan/48712.html) and, shockingly, fractions (http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/lessonplan.jsp?id=1019).  I found the Scholastic lesson on basic fractions (wholes, halves, maybe fourths) to be especially useful because many teachers have trouble incorporating them in interdisciplinary lessons.   This story presents the perfect opportunity to discuss some practical uses of fractions and expose younger students to the idea of dividing a whole (you’ll see why!) 

A Story A Story is actually an African fable about how stories came to the people of the earth.  It is timeless myth of a remarkable human, Ananse (pronounced A-Nancy) who wants to make the world a better place by bringing the stories of Nyame, the Sky God, to earth.  Ananse, who is also known as “the Spider man” because of his ability to spin webs like a spider, spins a web of a ladder to up into the sky to ask Nyame face-to-face if he could buy his golden box filled with stories from him and bring them back to earth.  I found it particularly interesting that in this legend, the human and the god get along relatively peacefully.  I am definitely more familiar with Greek and Roman myths than I am with African tales; however, I can gather from Ananse’s quest that ancient Africans had much more civil relationships with their gods than the ancient Greek. 

This tale teaches a number of important lessons, starting with Ananse’s desire to purchase the Sky God’s stories, not steal them.  Ananse and Nyame diplomatically discuss Ananse’s proposition and negotiate a deal.  Both sides agree to the proposed plan, and Ananse doesn’t rest until he fulfills his end of the bargain.  Maybe I like this book so much because I have always been fascinated by legal terminology, but its messages of morality and community made a real impact.  I love that Ananse—who is depicted as an older man—is the one to take charge in the village in the hopes of bringing the eternal happiness that comes along with story-telling to his community.  After some browsing on Gail Haley’s website (http://www.gailehaley.com/), I found a link to a short film produced by Weston Woods Studios—a division of Scholastic—in 1971, the same year Haley received the Caldecott Medal.   The film can be found on Scholastic.com (even though it says that it can be on Haley’s website), but it is available on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFnOCCq0y-w&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_715401).  The quality of the animated version of A Story A Story isn’t great, but the narrator’s voice and accompanying instrumentals really add to the cultural significance of Hayley’s text.  I was interested to learn that Haley is also an international master puppeteer!  Although she did not do puppetry in the A Story A Story film, it might be something fun to try with students as part of an author study. 

Her website also has a link to an interview with the author video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNkGIYdP03s&feature=player_embedded), in which she discusses her interest in children’s literature and illustrations.  I am amazed by her artistic variety—she paints, she writes, she draws, she carves linoleum stamps—and truly appreciate how she tailors her illustrations to the tone and context of the story she is trying to tell.  Unfortunately, the biographical film cuts off after a little more than two minutes, but that’s more than enough to see why she was a Caldecott Award Winner.   I am very interested in reading more of her books and seeing more of her beautiful interpretations of ancient tales from around the world.