THE FIRE CHILDREN

A warmhearted Akan pourquoi tale that explains why people come in so many different colors: When the first man and woman become lonely, they make children out of clay. As they are baking the little figures in their fire, they're constantly interrupted by visits from the sky-god—with the result that some of the children are pale and underdone, some are left in so long that they come out very dark, and the rest are every shade between. Lessac's decorative full-bleed gouache paintings are full of vivid plants, animals, and designs adapted from West African masks and pottery, all rendered in her joyous faux-naãf style. (For slightly older readers, there's a version of this tale in Ann Pilling's Realms of Gold, p. 462.) (Folklore/Picture book. 4-8)