Anansi and the Magic Stick

Plot Summary
Anansi the spider is always getting into mischief. This time, he’s too lazy to do any work. While his neighbors clean their houses and take care of their gardens, Anansi sleeps. After the neighbors badmouth Anansi, he leaves to find a more peaceful place to sleep think! He sees the Hyena is also sleeping, but his house and garden look wonderful. Anansi hides to find out Hyena’s secret. Soon enough, Hyena wakes up and says the magic words: “Hocus-pocus, Magic Stick. Sweep this dust up. Quick, quick, quick!” The stick does as it’s told, and as soon as Hyena goes inside, Anansi runs home with the stick. He has it clean up his house and garden, but falls asleep as the stick is watering. Anansi told the stick “Don’t stop!” and never woke up to speak the magic words, so the garden becomes flooded. The water becomes a stream, then a river, and all of the neighborhood is floating away. By the time Anansi wakes up, the flood is out of control, and he can’t remember the magic words! Will he be able to stop the water? More importantly, will Anansi ever learn his lesson?

Critical Analysis
Every page of this book is beautifully illustrated, including the end papers and the author’s pictures! The drawings seem somewhat traditional: the animals are anthropomorphized, but they are portrayed realistically, instead of as cartoon characters. Even though they look realistic, the animals are vividly colored and have a lot of personality shining through. “Steven’s comic creatures with their surprised expressions add kid appeal,” says Publishers Weekly.
     Illustrations cover nearly every page, with small blocks of text that encourage exploration of the art in between sentences. The sentences themselves look artistic, with creative spacing across pages, and bold, larger fonts to stress certain things, like when the animals are “working working working” and how the river was “a stream, then a flood, then a mighty river.”
     The repetition of the Magic Stick’s rhyme, and the gibberish quality of the spell to make it stop, makes this a fun story to read aloud. This playfulness with the fonts, along with the bright illustrations, is a nice spin on a traditional tale, updating it for younger children to enjoy it now, while still learning lessons along with, er… thanks to Anansi.

Personal Response
I remember loving traditional tales as a child because I always thought the lesson learned was fun (I know, I know - I’m a nerd!). When I had to read it this time, however, I found I was almost dreading it, just because it seemed, well, a little boring. The cover seemed kind of plain, and I had just read a silly book, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs. I was relieved to open the book and find such colorful illustrations, and it seemed more appealing since the drawings covered the majority of every page. I think illustrations are important for traditional tales, because the tales are so wonderful to read aloud and be heard - that means having interesting stuff to look at will pull the children in to the story even more. I also think the silliness of the spells to start and stop the Magic Stick are fun to read aloud, especially when the reader is expressive and stumbles over the forgotten spell with Anansi towards the end. The reader can also speak the animals’ lines in what their voices would sound like, with Hyena’s laugh and Lion’s roar.

Reviews & Awards
Kirkus Reviews says, “Children will delight in Anasi’s escapades as he annoys his neighbors and learns how to control the stick. This is [Kimmel and Stevens’s] fourth Anansi collaboration; has the tricky spider learned his lesson this time? Let's hope not-his stories are too amusing.”
     ”This tale has a more traditional ring to it than Kimmel and Stevens’s Anansi and the Talking Melon, but whimsical illustrations add a modern-day appearance. 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 School Library Journal.

Connections & Activities
Read other Anansi books by Eric A. Kimmel and illustrated by Janet Stevens:
Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock ISBN 9780823407989
Anansi and the Talking Melon ISBN 9780823411672
Anansi Goes Fishing ISBN 9780823410224
Anansi’s Party Time ISBN 9780823422418

Read it for yourself!
Kimmel, Eric A. 2001. Anansi and the Magic Stick. Ill. by Janet Stevens. New York: Holiday House, Inc. 9780823414437

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs

Plot Summary
Forget everything you think you know about the three little pigs - this is the real story! Alexander T. Wolf (you can call him Al) is tired of everyone thinking he’s a big bad wolf just because he likes to eat cute animals. The truth is, he just needed to borrow a cup of sugar. And since he had a cold, he decided to just walk over to his neighbor’s house. It’s not his fault his sneezes demolish houses - who builds out of straw and sticks? Al went from merely borrowing a cup of sugar to being jailed for “huffing and puffing” - proof that reporters always skew the story!

Critical Analysis
This book isn’t actually by Jon Scieszka, it’s by Alexander Wolf. And because this is his story, told from his point of view, he’s an unreliable narrator. He’s been know throughout history as the bad guy of the story, and even with justice insisting everyone is innocent until proven guilty, you’ll find A. Wolf a little hard to believe. Even so, the way he tells the story is very humorous and very childlike - making up reason after reason for why he did this, and then that, and how it got skewed. I think that is what makes it so appealing to children: the perfect combination of silliness and familiarity, told on their level.
     With a story told from the bad guy’s point of view, you can’t expect bright colors and smooth drawings! Lane Smith’s art fits The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs perfectly. The colors are mostly dark - maroons and burnt oranges, browns and tans. Each picture looks grainy, but on closer inspection, the marks are a lot of texture added to each drawing, like bumps on bricks, needles of hay, woodgrain on the chalkboard frame. The desaturated colors work well with the few samples of newsprint on the covers and at the end of the book. The illustrations seem a little dark for such a humorous story, but they are effective at setting the mood of an unreliable narrator trying to get you to believe his side of the story.
     Publishers Weekly praises the illustrations specifically, saying, “Smith’s highly imaginative watercolors eschew realism, further updating the tale, though some may find their urbane stylization and intentionally static quality mystifyingly adult.” School Library Journal also comments on the overall dark and shadowy drawings, saying, “[…] the bespectacled wolf moves with a rather sinister tonelessness, and his juicy sneezes tear like thunderbolts through a dim, grainy world.”

Personal Response
I loved this book as a child, and was thrilled to discover it’s just as funny now! I read it to my son - he’s only three months old, but so far all the fairy tales I’ve read to him have been fractured fairy tales! As an added bonus, we got to meet Jon Scieszka August 20, 2014 - he’s just as witty in person as in writing.
     I think it’s fun to read fractured fairy tales and compare them with the originals. This book is especially fun because the wolf seems sympathetic, wanting to bake a cake for his granny! It’s interesting to see who kids side with, since most know the other story of the three little pigs, and are now faced with looking at it from the bad guy’s point of view.

Reviews & Awards
The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs is #35 on School Library Journal’s list “Top 100 Picture Books” of all time. In 2008, Scieszka was the first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, a position created to bring awareness to the importance of reading at a young age. He is also the founder of “Guys Read,” a nonprofit literacy organization. His book The Stinky Cheese Man won a Caldecott Honor medal. Lane Smith was the illustrator for that book, and has worked with Scieszka on The Time Warp Trio novels. Smith has collaborated with many other authors and won countless awards for his work, including the recent Caldecott honor Grandpa Green.

Connections & Activities
The scope of activities for this book seem endless, because it’s so inviting for children. They can make up their own fractured fairy tales. They can discuss whether they believe the wolf or not, and explain their reasonings why. They can (and should!) read The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, also by Scieszka and Smith, and discuss the fractured fairy tales told there. As an extended study, students can read more books by the author and illustrator separately, and compare and contrast their works.

Read it for yourself!
Scieszka, Jon. 1989. The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs. Ill. by Lane Smith. New York: Puffin
     Books. ISBN 9780140544510