Authentic West Indian ghost stories brim with unusual characters, including duppies, restless spirits who haunt the living; angels, a mermaid, a witch doctor, a bush doctor, and a menacing poisonous toad. By the author of Turtle Island Alphabet.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
Grade 4 Up?Duppy (ghost) tales are a part of the African tradition, brought to the West Indies by tribal storytellers who came on slave ships. Hausman retells six tales that he learned in Jamaica, crediting his sources in a note after each one. Unlike those malicious ghosts of Western European and North American folklore, these spirits reward kindness and good character with gifts both tangible and spiritual (although they are not above an occasional good-humored trick or two). In one story, a bus driver delivers two little girls wearing nightgowns to a mountaintop house that he later learns has been gone for many years. His reward: the temperamental starter on his bus is fixed forever! In another selection, a man yearning for good luck reaps a bountiful reward after promising a dying cousin that he will care for his daughter. The language has a Jamaican ring, the notes are informative, and an 11-page glossary explains unfamiliar terms. This is one of the very few collections of West Indian folklore available for children, as Philip Sherlock's The Iguana's Tale (1969) and Ears and Tails and Common Sense (1974, both Crowell), are both out of print. A worthy addition.?Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Gr. 4-8. Gathered from storytellers on the north coast of Jamaica, these six tales are built on legends brought from Africa to the Caribbean. Familiar motifs are shaped by local lore and history. The stories are linked by a storyteller's voice, which provides unobtrusive background and context. Although all the tales have supernatural or mystical elements, "Chick Chick" is the scariest. It's a truly skin-crawling account of a woman's physical and psychological duel with a vengeful duppy (a restless soul believed to haunt the living) sent by an evil obeah man. Each tale opens with a Jamaican proverb, and a final chapter ("The Proverbs of Duppy Talk") discusses each saying's origin and meaning. The volume is attractively designed, with heavy, glossy pages, a generous amount of white space, and crisp black-and white chapter illustrations. There is also a strong glossary. The stories will be easy to booktalk and should have wide appeal across age and gender lines. Janice Del Negro
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More About the Author
I am an inveterate storyteller, which is to say: I love to do it, am helpless not to do it, and I do it all the time, even when I am by myself there is an inner monologue going on in my head. This habit of privately roving around in the land of legends is something I've done for as long as I can remember. My mom worried about me when she saw that I spent too much time by myself. I would creep into a closet and close the door and in the silence of the darkness I would spin tales of all kinds. I was never lonely as a kid because I had the imagination of a wild thing, and I was content to play in the fields and valleys and secret caves of that imaginary world.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Duppy Talk,
This review is from: Duppy Talk : West Indian Tales of Mystery and Magic (Paperback)
This book is for part of my grandchildren whose heritage is part Carribean. The middle one (age 11) finds the book especially fascinating.
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