Bringing the rain to Kapiti Plain A Nandi tale

Verna Aardema

Book - 1981

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Subjects
Genres
Picture books
Published
New York : Dial Press c1981.
Language
English
Main Author
Verna Aardema (-)
Other Authors
Beatriz Vidal (illustrator)
Item Description
A cumulative rhyme relating how Ki-pat brought rain to the drought-stricken Kapiti Plain.
Physical Description
[32] p. : col. ill
ISBN
9780803708099
9780803708075
Contents unavailable.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

As a note acknowledges, Aardema has taken a folk tale from Kenya, one which reminded its original British collector of ""The House That Jack Built,"" and brought it even closer to the cumulative structure and rhythm of that English nursery rhyme. Her rhymed version begins with a drought on Kapiti Plain: "". . . This is the grass/ all brown and dead,/ That needed the rain/from the cloud overhead--/ The big, black cloud,/ all heavy with rain,/ That shadowed the ground/on Kapiti Plain."" Then it zooms in on the young Ki-pat, who is tending his herd when an eagle feather drops near him. From the feather Ki-pat makes an arrow, which pierces ""the cloud that hangs overhead"" and brings rain to the plain. The Africans never told it this way to be sure, but the borrowed form gives this version a brisk, easy lilt, and the graphic, cut-out-like pictures are similarly crisp and direct. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.