Ashley Bryan Books in Order

Five African folktales follow tricksters, courting animals, and unlikely contests of wit. Ashley Bryan retells stories from Ghana, Angola, and South Africa, using lively illustrations to explore how cleverness can succeed or unexpectedly backfire.

This collection brings together the words and music of twenty-four Black spirituals. Ashley Bryan presents traditional songs for readers and singers, offering a way to encounter their musical heritage through both lyrics and shared performance.

When Spider Ananse steals Aku’s magical ring, a cat and dog set out to recover it. Their adventures test each animal’s resourcefulness in a folktale that explains the different places cats and dogs occupy at home.

Spider Ananse hopes to steal from Granny’s garden by distracting her with dancing. His scheme becomes less manageable than he expects in a rhythmic folktale about a trickster whose clever plan creates trouble of its own.

Five Nigerian folktales pair rhythmic storytelling with woodcut illustrations. From a musical monkey to a friendship threatened by parental prejudice, the tales explore foolishness, ingenuity, and the lessons hidden in encounters between animals.

Twenty-five traditional spirituals appear with their lyrics, musical notation, and Ashley Bryan’s woodcut illustrations. The collection invites readers to sing familiar songs while exploring the expressive traditions carried through Black American religious music.

Cat and Rat are friends, but Rat cannot resist playing a special drum reserved for cats. His trick sets off a dispute in this illustrated folktale explaining the surprising origin of a cat’s familiar purr.

Four African folktales explore the value of practical intelligence when strength or pride proves inadequate. In the title story, a resourceful mongoose challenges a foolish lion to help rescue six vulnerable ostrich chicks.

Sh-Ko carries the luggage while his eight handsome brothers set out to court Princess Yakami. An encounter with a rabbit missing its fur changes the overlooked brother’s prospects in this tale of kindness and unexpected fortune.

A little boy burdened with an unusually long name faces a new challenge when his grandmother asks him to discover hers. This illustrated folktale turns the search for a name into a playful family mystery.

Thunder, a mother sheep, and Lightning, her son, once lived among people in a West African village. This illustrated folktale follows the events that explain how the pair eventually came to inhabit the sky.

Twenty-six African proverbs offer observations about family, character, and everyday life. Ashley Bryan pairs each saying with illustrations and identifies its cultural origins, showing how images of familiar animals and objects can carry widely shared wisdom.

The brightly colored birds of Africa admire Blackbird and ask him to share his beautiful black markings. As he decorates their feathers, he reminds them that their individual identities and inner qualities matter more than appearance.

Ashley Bryan illustrates three familiar spirituals with colorful cut-paper scenes. The songs invite children to celebrate light, belonging, and shared joy, connecting the experience of singing together with the images and rhythms on each page.

Ashley Bryan recalls a life shaped by art, from making things during the Depression to sketching while serving in a segregated army. Photographs and artwork accompany his account of pursuing creativity despite racism and discouragement.

A young shepherd who also works as a carpenter prepares a shelter that will welcome the infant Jesus. This rhyming Nativity story imagines the child behind the stable and the kindness that makes room for others.

Twenty African American spirituals are presented with colorful illustrations, piano accompaniments, and guitar chords. Ashley Bryan gathers familiar songs into a collection that welcomes children and adults to explore their rhythms and sing together.

A fearless boy ignores his grandmother’s warnings and wanders away with his flute. When he encounters two many-headed giants on his journey home, their alarming musical abilities present a challenge he had not anticipated.

Discarded objects gathered along a Maine island shore become expressive hand puppets in Ashley Bryan’s studio. Photographs and poems introduce these characters, revealing how bones, glass, and tangled fishing nets can inspire stories and new creations.

A trolley journey carries readers into a dream filled with animals, distant places, toys, and a circus. Ashley Bryan’s poem accompanies Marvin Bileck’s illustrations, following the imaginative transformations that unfold as a child drifts toward sleep.

Inspired by documents that priced enslaved people as property, Ashley Bryan imagines eleven individuals’ lives and dreams. Poems and paintings restore personal ambitions, relationships, and dignity to people whose humanity was denied by those records.

Drafted at eighteen, Ashley Bryan confronts warfare and racism within the segregated American army. His artwork, letters, and memories reveal how creative work and moments of human kindness helped sustain him through World War II.