THE SPIDER WEAVER

In her first book for children since Ashanti to Zulu (1976, a Caldecott winner for illustrators Leo and Diane Dillon), Musgrove retells a beguiling Ashanti tale about the origin of kente cloth. Two gentle weavers discover by chance an astonishing, multicolored spider web in the forest. To their dismay—as much at the spider’s loss as their own—their efforts to carry it home for study destroy it. Returning to the spot the next day, however, the two find it re-spun, and its arachnid creator waiting to dance its patterns for them until they can create their own webs. In Cairns’s (Off to the Sweet Shores of Africa, 2000) big, vibrant illustrations the spider’s webs, and the cloth that they inspire, are symphonies of dazzling, saturated color, artfully set off both by lush tropical backgrounds, and the deep skin tones of the human figures. Like kente cloth itself, this will have a powerful visual impact on all who see it, and Musgrove adds value to her simply told narrative with a concluding discussion of her sources and the significance of the cloth’s various patterns. (Picture book/folktale. 6-8)