Everyone has played the game “rock breaks scissors”. As kids, we played it at length, with the winners of each round exacting wet-fingered wrist-slaps to losers until it was hard to say which hurt more—the winners’ fingers or the losers’ wrists. We were young but we understood the odd paradox implied by the game’s name—that the apparent weak element can hold power to overshadow so-called strength. The lessons began to sink in, too, that punishers often reap unintended and painful fruits along with the punished.

African children learn many lessons from the rich cultural heritage of oral story-telling. One resource has been the West African “Anansi” stories. Anansi, the wise trickster, is a spider, and many are the tales that spin human foibles into lessons for young children to learn by. One such story evolved into the tale about the tar baby[1] that trapped and taught a lesson to Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Fox. Like “weak” paper and its rock covering strength, the doll made of tar “captured” the clever but impudent rabbit. (The African Anansi story was interwoven with a Native American “tar-wolf” story—another example of parents around the world using culture and stories to teach their young.[2])

Parents everywhere have always tried to teach children wisely so the children would become wise in their own time. In my story, Bentari learned his parents’ lessons well. Remembering the games, stories and songs that he loved so much was Bentari’s good fortune. From games and secret lessons, Bentari followed an ancestral trail. The trail led him first to the vast hidden treasure of his tribe and then to an escape from those who wished him nothing but harm.

Graphic artwork is by Amine Errahli. See more of his art at: http://aminovish.carbonmade.com/

[1] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tar_Baby

[2] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anansi