The Talking Cloth

by Rhonda Mitchell

When Amber and her father go to visit her Aunt Phoebe, she wraps herself in cloth from Ghana and learns the significance of the colors and symbols to the Ashanti people

Genres: Picture Books, African American, Fiction

32 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1997

Reviews

[GlitterWater79 · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very heartfelt and accessible way to learn about Ghanaian adinkra cloth and the ways fabric holds meaning and tells stories generally. Beautiful paintings.

[Courtney Cohen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This fictional story is about a girl named Amber who loves visitng her Aunt Phoebe because her house is so interesting and covered in artifacts from all over. They specifically talk about an adinkra cloth her aunt brought back from Ghana. Aunt Phoebe explains how it used to be worn just by royalty and that the colors and symbols each have meanings. Amber begins to imagine what types of colors and symbols the adinkras her family members would have to best represent them. She also imagines herself as an Ashanti princess wearing the cloth surrounded by her family and all the people who have ever worn the garment before her.
I feel like I learned a lot from this book about adinkras and African culture. Amber's excitement to learn about a culture she connected to could influence other students to do the same. If I were reading this book to the class I would follow it up with an activity where each of the students would make their own adinkras and choose colors and symbols that had meaning to them as individuals. I think students would be excited to read this book and see all of the interesting artifacts. I also like the way Aunt Phoebe talked about the importance of growing on the inside. This is a concept that would be interesting to discuss in a classroom setting and I believe would influence students with a greater thirst for knowledge of different cultures, perhaps including their own that they may not know much about.

[Deanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is heartwarming with very interesting information. I think this is a good book for a Social Studies lesson. Specifically, the importance and purpose of symbols is the main topic of this book. It would be a perfect introduction to a lesson about cultural symbols. Otherwise, I do not think the book holds enough facts and substance for other lessons.