A Story A Story

A Story, a Story is a children’s picture book written and illustrated by Gail E. Haley. It retells an African tale about how the trickster Anansi, the Spider Man, obtained stories from Nyame, the Sky God, so that children on Earth could hear them. To succeed, Anansi must capture three challenging creatures: Osebo the leopard, Mmboro the hornet, and Mmoatia the fairy.

Haley created the illustrations using hand-carved woodblocks and linocuts, which she cut and printed herself. She spent a year in the Caribbean researching the folklore and traced its African origins in Ghana and Nigeria.

The book was published in 1970 by Atheneum and won the Caldecott Medal for illustration in 1971. In the same year, it was adapted into an animated short by Gene Deitch for Weston Woods Studios in Prague, narrated by John Akar, with African music recreated using instruments from the Náprstek Museum.