The Fire Children: A West African Folk Tale

This is a superb book, it captures the attention of the reader through the illustrations and the theme of the story. I used it as a hook to begin art week with my year 1 class. It opens up many opportunities for art and design such as exploring repeated patterns, designing and making masks, chalk backdrops, collage felt animals and clay moulding. Alongside this you can easily thread through writing activities and PSHE discussions. Also the delivery service and condition of the book was excellent. I would highly recommend this book.

This is a stunning book. The story is simply and beautifully told and the illustrations are perfect. This story provoked lots of discussion with my grandchildren and I know we will return to it many times.

What a magnificent book! After my kids showed interest in the Djembe drums of West Africa and started to learn to play them with teachers from Senegal, Gambia and the Guinea I wanted to show them more about West Africa. After a simple search in amazon I found this book and guided by the great reviews I bought it. One of the best books we’ve ever read. My 7 year old twins are full of questions and they are starting to show interest on our origins as human beings, both physically, spiritually, religiously and in terms of evolution. This book is the perfect answer to their questions: there is not one answer! This West African folk tale explains our existence in this planet in such a child like way and most importantly addresses our differences in skin colour in the most original way. It is only a matter of how much we cooked in the fire oven. And then this book provides opportunities for artistic expression for kids making their own fire dolls in clay in many colours. It boils down to one thing. We are all from the same source and our skin colour is just incidental. Perfect book in every way!

If you are looking for a text to start off your P4C lessons use this. A lovely sensitive story and one that gets the children talking. Also worth trying Pete the Cat. This was a real hit in our school for P4C and for all ages. Good for thinking skills.

Lovely story with a simple meaning. Great book for anyone needing stories from other countries. We have read it many times already.

Beautiful creation story with links to outdoor learning and clay modelling.

This book was mentioned to me by a retiring head teacher.It was used by her many years ago in London.I found it still existed and bought it as a present" A blast from the past" Fantastic.

A slightly different story. Better for children from about 5 so my 3 year old granddaughter will have to wait before we read it.

Preciosa historis

Absolutely fabulous folktale about why we are all different! Some might find the reference to "being cooked in a fire" offensive, but it needs to be understood in the context of a folktale. A must read for my racially diverse preschool class of 4's and 5's every year! A special book. My children ask for it to be read again and again. There is no better recommendation than that!

Excellent!!