Why mosquitoes buzz in people's ears A West African tale

Verna Aardema

Book - 1975

West African legend of why the mosquito has a guilty conscience for all the trouble she caused by telling a lie.

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Subjects
Genres
Picture books
Published
New York : Dial Books for Young Readers c1975.
Language
English
Main Author
Verna Aardema (-)
Other Authors
Leo Dillon (illustrator), Diane Dillon
Physical Description
unpaged : col. ill
ISBN
9780881030792
9780803760899
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Ages 5^-7. The Dillons' cut shapes of varying hues assembled into stylized scenes create a polished, dramatic visual panorama that is well matched by Aardema's onomatopoeic text relating how a mosquito's silly lie to an iguana sets in motion a cumulative series of events.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

This tale from Africa is another of those cumulative goose chases except that instead of pursuing an object, the game here is fixing the blame for an overlong night. As King Lion summarizes the chain of events after it's all straightened out, ""it was the mosquito who annoyed the iguana, who frightened the python, who scared the rabbit, who startled the crow, who alarmed the monkey, who killed the owlet--and now Mother Owl won't wake the sun so that the day can come."" Not one of your indispensable kernels of folk wisdom, but it is the kind of brisk go-round that can pick up a lagging story hour group. And though the stunning illustrations are not our favorite Dillons--they don't generate much life or involvement--their crisp cut paper look commands attention. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.