From Bogey Bear
Folk tales are fun - old stories that teach of how to live together.
They usually predate the written word and can be found in all parts of
the world. Here, we learn about telling the truth because the
mosquito created a lot of trouble many many years ago when he told a lie
to the lizzard. The book has beautiful pictures and uses
repetition and silly words to make it fun for children to read with you.
About the Book
Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears: A West African Tale is a picture
book told in the form of a cumulative tale written for young children,
which tells an African legend. In this origin story, the mosquito lies
to a lizard, who puts sticks in his ears and ends up frightening another
animal, which down a long line causes a panic. In the end, an owlet is
killed and the owl is too sad to wake the sun until the animals hold
court and find out who is responsible. The mosquito is eventually found
out, but it hides in order to escape punishment. So now it constantly
buzzes in people's ears to find out if everyone is still angry at it.
The book won a Caldecott Medal in 1976 for its illustrators, Leo and Diane Dillon.[1] The artwork was made using watercolor airbrush, pastels, and India ink. The cutout shapes were made by using friskets and vellum cut shapes at different angles.[2] It was the first of their two consecutive Caldecott wins; the second was for Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions.
From Scholastic
In this West African folk tale, retold by Verna Aardema, a mosquito
brags to an iguana that he spied a farmer digging yams as big as
mosquitoes. The iguana scoffs at such a notion and refuses to listen to
any more nonsense. Grumbling, he puts sticks in his ears and scuttles
off through the reeds and sets off a chain reaction among myriad animals
inhabiting the same landscape.
The iguana offends a friendly python, who shoots down a rabbit hole and terrifies a rabbit. Seeing the rabbit scares a crow overhead, who spreads an alarm that danger is near. When a monkey reacts to the alarm, an owlet is killed, which sets off a wave of grieving in the mother owl so profound that she is unable to wake the sun each day with her hooting.
The nights grow longer, and when the King Lion calls a meeting to get to the bottom of the situation, the chain of events is traced back to the source of all the trouble, the pesky mosquito. Finding the culprit satisfies the mother owl, who calls the sun back again. But, alas, the mosquito is forever plagued with a guilty conscience, compelling him forever to be a pest.
The vibrant neo-primitive illustrations, which earned this title a Caldecott medal in 1976, enhance and embellish the tale. This is a timeless story sure to charm a wide range of readers and listeners.
About the Author
Born in New Era, Michigan she graduated from Michigan State University
with a B.A. of Journalism in 1934. She worked as a grade school teacher
from 1934 to 1973 and became a correspondent for the Muskegon Chronicle
in 1951, which lasted until 1972, the year before she retired from
teaching elementary school.
From the time she was a small girl, she knew that she would be a writer. She spent every free second reading anything she could get her hands on. In her Senior Year at Michigan State she won three writing contests, though not the first, they were the most influential in her decision to continue to follow her childhood dream. She first considered writing for children when her daughter refused to eat until she'd heard one of her mother's stories. These bribes were often set in the places that she had been reading about recently, and as she became more and more interested in Africa, they began to be set there more frequently.
In 1960 she published her first set of stories, Tales from the Story Hat which were very successful, and so she continued to adapt traditional tales and folklore from distant cultures, (usually from Africa and Mexico) to expose young children to the vast variety of human expression.
Her book, Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears (1975), illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon, received the Caldecott Medal in 1976 and the Brooklyn Art Books for Children Award in 1977. Who's in Rabbit's House? 1977 was the 1977 School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award winner in 1978. Aardema received the Children's Reading Round Table Award in 1981, and several of her works have been selected as Notable Books by the American Library Association. Her Oh Kojo! How Could You! won the 1984 Parents' Choice Award for Literature.
About the Illustrator
Artist Diane Dillon is renowned for the enormous body of work she has
produced with her husband and collaborator, Leo Dillon. Leo and Diane Dillon have a unique method of work they describe as
emanating from “a third artist” — something neither of them could
produce alone, and in which no aspect can be attributed exclusively to
one or the other.