Customer Reviews:
 An Adinkra themed children's book March 23, 2009
The Delite Rancher (Phoenix, Arizona)
In "The Talking Cloth," a girl accompanies her family to Aunt Phoebe's. It quickly becomes clear that while the protagonist's family is square, her aunt is hip. The girl looks up to Aunt Phoebe as she is educated, artistic and worldly. While exploring the aunt's neat things, the girl notices an Adinkra cloth. The aunt unwraps the cloth and tells the story of the celebrated cloth. There is a brief description of the colors and symbols. An explanation is given for two popular symbols, Gye Nyame and Obi nka Obie. By the end of the story, the family comes together, united around the cloth. The visit is a warm, heritage friendly experience. The representation of Adrinka is bit odd. Adinkra means "separation" or "farewell"' which is why it is typically worn at funerals. Depicted as if it were Kente cloth, it is described as an all-purpose Afrocentric celebration and the darker side of the cloth is only mentioned. In Ghana, one would be hard pressed to find anybody wearing an Adinkra cloth outside of a funeral and the colors are almost always black ink on black cloth or red on black (see the pictures I placed in the image gallery for this product). While Rhonda Mitchell explores the rainbow colors of contemporary cloths, they are typically for tourists. This feedback is mostly nitpicking since "The Talking Cloth" is for the most part accurate and socially affirmative. The pictures are attractive and the reading level is best for second graders. This is a valuable read given the lack of similar books. So it is especially tragic that the book is out-of-print. At the time of review, some of Amazon's marketplace sellers were offering this book for ridiculous prices but a few copies could still be had for reasonable prices. (I mean really, $224.95 for a used copy?! You can buy an Adrinkra cloth for that much!) On a related side note, the Westerner can watch the making of a cloth on the "Arts of Ghana" DVD. While Adrinkra literally means farewell, out-of-print has the same meaning, so get "The Talking Cloth" while you can.
Adinkra cloth May 7, 2007
M. Whipp
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
A delightful children's book that explains the West African Adinkra cloth and the meanings of the colors and symbols.
A wonderful read on a number of levels October 23, 2004
D. Mooney (Philadelphia, PA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book is great. I bought it based on the beautiful illustrations and skimming the words, thinking it would be a nice addition to my literacy library for kindergarten. Once I got the book home as usual I first read it to my 2-year-old. Showing a much greater attention span than normal, she listened raptly to the whole thing, viewing pictures, then said, "Again!" The illustrations in this book indeed are a great highlight. They make a reader feel they can step right into the scenes of the story and talk with the people, feel the cloth. Also, the dialogue between the characters is lively, and the story of the adinkra cloth teaches a whole cultural custom from beginning to end. When Amber dreams of being an Ashanti princess, or sees her whole family wearing the cloths as Ashanti people, her imagination is exciting to children, who begin to imagine themselves in different cultures and contexts as well. I like the way the book connected Amber and her family to their cultural traditions in a way that made for an interesting story, but also, provided knowledge about a custom we may not otherwise know. The only thing I do not like about the story, and which continues to give me pause every time I read it to a new child, is the way Aunt Phoebe and Amber's dad's (Phoebe's brother) relationship is portrayed. Amber's dad makes negative comment after negative comment in the book about Aunt Phoebe's collections of cultural heritage, and we have to wait quite long before we learn he really likes drinking mocha and listening to stories too. And we never really learn why this tension exists, so it is just out of nowhere in an otherwise positive story for young children. I feel sensitive to it because in a story of African Americans, to have the only male, the father, being negative about so much for no contextual reason seems to harken back to criticsms I have read about African American males being portrayed in negative roles in literature and film (Color Purple, Waiting to Exhale). With the latter, I think context was there. In this story, since it is for children and very short, if we can't figure out why Amber's dad is unhappy, maybe that part doesn't need to be in an otherwise enriching, positive, and wonderful story.
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