Harold Courlander

Thirty-one folk tales from Asia, the Middle East, and islands in the Pacific with a section of notes on each story at the end of the book..

Believed to be the reincarnation of a hated leader, a young boy is cast out from his village and wanders performing many heroic deeds until the fulfillment of a prophecy helps him find his true identity.

A collection of twenty legends of the Hopi people, originating in the different tribes and relating tales of journeys, wars, heroic deeds, and tribal heroes.

A collection of seventeen traditional tales from the Hopi.

Twenty-nine stories from the people of Nigeria that tell, among other things, why the lizard sometimes lives in a house and about the man who found death in happiness.

African is a short autobiographical account of a pivotal moment in Nobel-Prize-winning author J. M. G. Le Clezio's childhood. In 1948, young Le Clezio, with his mother and brother, left behind a still-devastated Europe to join his father, a military doctor in Nigeria, from whom he'd been separated by the war. In Le Clezio's characteristically intimate, poetic voice, the narrative relates both the dazzled enthusiasm the child feels at discovering newfound freedom in the African savannah and his torment at discovering the rigid authoritarian nature of his father. The power and beauty of the book reside in the fact that both discoveries occur simultaneously. While primarily a memoir of the author's boyhood, The African is also Le Clezio's attempt to pay a belated homage to the man he met for the first time in Africa at age eight and was never quite able to love or accept. His reflections on the nature of his relationship to his father become a chapeau bas to the adventurous military doctor who devoted his entire life to others. Though the author palpably renders the child's disappointment at discovering the nature of his estranged father, he communicates deep admiration for the man who tirelessly trekked through dangerous regions in an attempt to heal remote village populations. The major preoccupations of Le Clezio's life and work can be traced back to these early years in Africa. The question of colonialism, so central to the author, was a primary source of contention for his father: "Twenty-two years in Africa had inspired him with a deep hatred of all forms of colonialism." Le Clezio suggests that however estranged we may be from our parents, however foreign they may appear, they still leave an indelible mark on us. His father's anti-colonialism becomes The African's legacy to his son who would later become a world-famous champion of endangered peoples and cultures.

Discusses the essence and development of various forms of Negro folk music, both vocal and instrumental, including ballads, blues, spirituals, worksongs, Louisiana Creole songs, cries, dances, and game songs. Includes words and music for forty-three songs, and discographies.

The tales in this collection reflect the traditional ways and thinking of different regions and peoples in Africa south of the Sahara. Grades 4-6.

Twenty-one illustrated tales from the Ashanti.