LS5603-Traditional Lit 2: Anansi and the Magic Stick by Eric A. Kimmel, Ill. by Janet Stevens

1.     BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kimmel, Eric A. Anansi and the Magic Stick. Ill. by Janet Stevens. New York: Holiday House, 2001. ISBN 0823417638

2.     PLOT SUMMARY

Anansi the spider lives in a very dirty house with a poorly-kept garden. All his neighbors think Anansi is very lazy, or the house and garden would look better. In an attempt to prove his neighbors wrong, Anansi decides to steal Hyena’s magic stick to the work for him, so he can still be lazy but look like he’s hard at work. But taking shortcuts and using magic causes unintended consequences that Anansi is not prepared for.

3.     CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Anansi and the Magic Stick is loosely based off of a Liberian story called The Magic Hoe. The main character, Anansi, wants to get out of working and looks for any means by which he can connive his way to an easier task. Like The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, his attempt to make things easier on himself eventually overwhelms him and makes a much more difficult task that someone else has to fix. Although a similar moral follows this story, that taking short cuts in your task can lead to ill effects, it is overshadowed by the fact that Anansi basically gets away with it by cunningly lying.

The illustrations are strangely modern. The trash in Anansi’s yard is made of aluminum cans, milk cartons, and crumpled up paper. The zebra later on in the tale lounges on a beach chair and the warthog uses a swim tube to float around. When there’s a flood, there are two humans (renditions of the author and artist) carried off in it, a very unusual thing to see in an anthropomorphic story, and they look like two tourists from Minnesota. The pictures are bright and fun, and display what is going on in the narration, but they have no connection to the original Liberian story except for having animals instead of humans. Although the illustrations are lovely, I feel that it was a missed opportunity to celebrate the heritage of this story.

4.     REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

From PUBLISHERS’ WEEKLY- “Stevens’s comic creatures with their surprised expressions add kid appeal.”

From SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL – “The art has a softer focus than in Talking Melon but the same bright colors fill the pages, and the whole adds up to an enjoyable offering that is clever, funny, surprising, and traditional all at once.”

From BOOKLIST – “It’s a long way from the original tale, but Kimmel tells it with cheerful energy, and Stevens’ chaotic mixed-media illustrations, with lots of bright pink and green, show Anansi’s friends and neighbors—warthog, lion, hyena, zebra, and in one picture, Kimmel and Stevens—caught up in the mess.”

5.     CONNECTIONS

Try other Anansi the spider stories:

·         Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti by Harcourt School Publishers. ISBN 080503118

·         Anansi and the Talking Melon by Eric A. Kimmel, Ill. by Janet Stevens. ISBN 0823411672

Other books about Tricksters

·         Why Mosquitos Buzz in People’s Ears: A West African Tale by Verna Aardema, Ill by Leo Dillon and Diane Dillon. ISBN 0140549056

·         Raven: A Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest by Gerald McDermott ISBN 0152024492

·         Jabuti the Tortoise: A Trickster Tale from the Amazon by Gerald McDermott. ISBN 0152053743

·         Tales of Uncle Remus: The Adventures of Brer Rabbit by Julius Lester, Ill by Jerry Pinkney. ISBN 0142407208