Anansi and the Talking Cloth – West African Folklore Retelling

Description

Coming August 25, 2026. Pre-order today!

By: Caroline Brewer with Kwasi Asare / Illustrated by: Ekua Holmes

When kente-cloth weavers stop weaving, Anansi the Spider must save the city in this modern and original African folktale.

One day the sun stops shining because the kente-cloth making spiders have stopped weaving in protest against mass-produced cloth. Handmade kente cloth has made Africa famous and the spider city wealthy. Without it, the city is doomed.

Anansi faces the biggest challenge of his spider life. He’ll need all the wits of his clever trickster past, and a little help from his wife, to restore harmony. Author Caroline Brewer and master kente-cloth weaver Kwasi Asare bring readers a fresh take featuring the trickster Anansi, a classic hero.

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Author & Illustrator

Caroline Brewer, author

Caroline Brewer is an award-winning children’s book author, artist, environmentalist, literacy consultant, and creator of Nature-Wise, a program for students and teachers that blends literacy and nature exploration. Caroline is also author and illustrator of Harriet Tubman, Force of Nature and author of Say Their Names. She lives in the Washington, DC, metro area. 

Read more about Caroline.

Kwasi Asare, author

Kwasi Asare was born in Nsawam, near the capital city of Accra, Ghana, and is one of Africa’s most prominent and accomplished weavers known for kente cloth, the highly prized Ghanaian cloth that traditionally symbolizes royalty, honor, and leadership. For the United Nations’ fiftieth anniversary in 1995, he created a new kente cloth design. Until 2017, it replaced the original cloth created by Kwasi’s father, A. E. Asare.

Read more about Kwasi.

Ekua Holmes, illustrator

Ekua Holmes was awarded a Caldecott Honor, Coretta Scott King’s John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award, Robert Siebert Award, and Boston Globe–Horn Book award for Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, her first illustration project. She won the Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration twice: Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets and Stuff of Stars.

Read more about Ekua.

Awards & Honors

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Editorial Reviews

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Details

Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-62354-421-8

Ages: 5–8
Page count: 40
9¹/₂ x 9¹/₂

Publication date: August 25, 2026

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