First Palm Trees
by James Berry
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Description
The West Indian trickster Anancy Spiderman tries to persuade Sun-Spirit, Water-Spirit, Earth-Spirit, and Air-Spirit to create the world's first palm trees so that he can collect a reward from the king.Tags
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Member Reviews
The illustrations in this book were wonderful and vibrant. I loved the color choices and the way the pictures fit together as a collection. They were mesmerizing.
The story was not at all what I expected. I have read about Anancy in a mythology book. He was said to be a shape-shifter and a trickster. In this book, he tried to trick the gods into making palm trees for the king and leaving the reward to him.
The gods agreed, but they all told him that they did not work alone and that their works helped others works work. The wording was a bit confusing, but not too much to get past. I did find it odd that all of the gods had the same response to him. That brought the entertainment level down a bit.
In the end, the king could not prove who show more brought the palm trees, so he rewarded everyone with a feast. Overall, I loved the detailed and colorful illustrations, but I did not care for the story or the fragmented sentence structure. show less
The story was not at all what I expected. I have read about Anancy in a mythology book. He was said to be a shape-shifter and a trickster. In this book, he tried to trick the gods into making palm trees for the king and leaving the reward to him.
The gods agreed, but they all told him that they did not work alone and that their works helped others works work. The wording was a bit confusing, but not too much to get past. I did find it odd that all of the gods had the same response to him. That brought the entertainment level down a bit.
In the end, the king could not prove who show more brought the palm trees, so he rewarded everyone with a feast. Overall, I loved the detailed and colorful illustrations, but I did not care for the story or the fragmented sentence structure. show less
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Author Information
32+ Works 1,159 Members
James Berry was born in coastal Jamaica on September 28, 1924. He worked for four years as a contract laborer on farms and in factories in the United States before moving to the United Kingdom. He joined the Post Office and spent 20 years as a telecommunications operator. His first collection of poetry, Fractured Circles, was published in 1979. show more His other collections of poetry included Lucy's Letters and Loving, Chain of Days, Hot Cold Earth, Windrush Songs, and A Story I Am In. He won several awards including the National Poetry prize for Fantasy of an African Boy in 1981, the Smarties prize for A Thief in the Village and Other Stories in 1987, the Signal poetry award in 1989, and the Coretta Scott King book award in 1989. He was appointed OBE in 1990. He died on June 20, 2017 at the age of 92. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Awards and Honors
Classifications
- Genres
- Children's Books, Picture Books
- DDC/MDS
- 398.24 — Society, government, & culture Customs, etiquette & folklore Folklore & Folktales Folk literature Fables, Magical Creatures
- LCC
- PZ8.1 .B4187 .F — Language and Literature Fiction and juvenile belles lettres Fiction and juvenile belles lettres Juvenile belles lettres
Statistics
- Members
- 23
- Popularity
- 1,148,859
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.75)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 1
- ASINs
- 2
