Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock

Author: Retold by Eric A. Kimmel

Illustrator: Janet Stevens
Publisher: Holiday House

ISBN: 0-8234-0798-5

Imagine that… there is a life lesson to be learned from a silly children’s book.  Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock is a story about a spider that coaxes his friends to go into the woods to visit a magical moss-covered rock.  The magic of the rock is that if you say the magic phrase, “Isn’t this a strange moss-covered rock!” in front of the rock you will pass out for an hour.  Anansi makes this discovery on his own and then, because he is too lazy to gather his own food, uses this trickery on his friends.  When his friends pass out in front of the rock, Anansi goes back to their homes and takes their food.  All the while he is being watched by another friend, Little Bush Deer who eventually outwits Anansi at his own game and all the food is returned to its various owners.

The characters in the book are exotic animals, which children are always fascinated by.  The story also has a catchy and repetitive style that is perfect for a teacher who wants to keep all eyes and ears on the book.  Janet Stevens has this way of drawing animals to make them endearingly strange.  I would recommend this book to other teachers to share and enjoy with their students.

As we all know, once the drama, tragedy, and humor of a children’s book such as this one flies away into fantasyland, we are left with the moral of the story.  The author uses the tale to turn a world of make believe into a small piece of reality.  Eric A. Kimmel, through his version of the story, shows children that you can end up working harder scheming, as opposed to just doing the work.  This is great advice for people of all ages and it’s never too early to teach the importance of hard, honest work.  The book also shows that if you trick your friends enough, one of them just might get back at you.  You certainly won’t like the joke played on you.  

I could have used this lesson when I was younger.  One Halloween I was trick-or-treating with my brothers who often left me unattended.  I was being particularly lazy, which you might think would be uncommon for a girl roaming the neighborhood in a Wonder Woman costume.  During the house-to-house visits, one homeowner left the candy out on the steps.  I don’t know why that person would think that children would respect the honor system but maybe they assumed parents would be chaperoning.  With my five sticky fingers I picked up the plastic orange jack-o‘-lantern filled with treats by its black handle.  I decided to make that my last stop of the evening and quickly walked down the block away from the scene of the crime.  To my dismay, when I got home I realized that the bucket was mostly chocolate.  I do not like chocolate.  I loathe chocolate.  I got to watch my brothers eat all the good stuff they earned from going door to door... and they were never good at sharing.  Every Halloween since, I gladly went to each house just so I could reap the sweet benefits of a hard day's work. 

In my adult life, I make it a habit to follow the "Golden Rule" I learned in kindergarten, "Treat others the way you would like to be treated".