Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions

This is Africa, an enormous and varied continent inhabited by hundreds of different peoples whose array of customs and traditions are as diverse as the land itself.

Leo and Diane Dillon, winners of the 1976 Caldecott Medal for the Most Distinguished Picture Book for Children, and Margaret Musgrove, runner-up in the Council on Interracial Books Contest for Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions, have combined their talents to create this stunning picture book.

It would take volumes to describe the cultures of all the African tribes, but here are insights about twenty-six of them, from the Ashanti to the Zulu. Margaret Musgrove has described ceremonies, celebrations, and day-to-day customs. Some of them are shared by many peoples, others are unique, but all are fascinating.

Leo and Diane Dillon, whose paintings for
Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears
(dial) earned them the 1976 Caldecott Medal, have outdone themselves in illustrating Ashanti to Zulu. Their magnificent full-color paintings, prepared in pastels, watercolors, and acrylics, glow with warmth and drama. Their research has been exhaustive, covering the thousands of details they have shown in their paintings.

In order to show as much about the different tribes as possible, in most paintings the Dillons have included a man, a woman, a child, their living quarters, an artifact, and a local animal. They have drawn these elements together with the remarkable artistic insight which has become their hallmark, capturing in their artwork the beauty and dignity of each of the twenty-six peoples described.