Anansi the Spider
Written by Gerald McDermott
Children's Picture Book Ages 4-7
Rating: 4/5

A retold folktale from Ghana about Anansi and his 6 spider sons that go on a treacherous journey. The story ends up explaining how Ghanaian people believe the moon came to be what it is today.

Opinion: The book is very rich in terms of culture and is interesting to read. It also won the Caldecott Honor award due to its simplistic yet colorful illustrations. Anansi's son's names are great: See Trouble, Road Builder, River Drinker, Game Skinner, Stone Thrower, and Cushion. Can you guess what they are going to do in the story? Their journey to save their dad is inspiring, and you kind of forget that they are just spiders!

Curriculum Connection: This book is a great multicultural book, mainly because it comes from Ashanti, an area in Ghana, Africa, and can give a lot of details about their culture and traditions. I used this book in a curriculum transformation assignment for social studies to use in a unit on Ghana and to have the kids write their own folktale and to understand the traditions on Ghana. It is very creative so I think the kids can glean a lot of ideas from it.