Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears

Aardema, V. (1975). Why mosquitoes buzz in people’s ears. New York: Scholastic.

This is a West African folktale that was retold by Verna Aardema. It opens with a mosquito talking to an iguana about the yams he has seen a farmer digging up. Annoyed and uninterested, the iguana trudges away shoving sticks in his ears so he no longer has to listen to the mosquito’s ramblings. This sets off a series of events in the jungle. The iguana with the sticks in his ears does not hear the python talking to him so he fears he is planning some treachery. He flees into an underground tunnel, which causes the rabbit in there to scurry out in the open field. The crow, seeing the rabbit running for her life, alerts the jungle that there is danger. This sends the monkey in a frenzied panic through the treetops, where he breaks a branch, causing a young owlet to fall and die. The mother owl that is charge of waking the sun every morning does not do so because she is mourning the loss of her baby. As the night grows longer and longer, the King Lion gathers all the animals together to solve the mystery of what happened so the owl will wake up the sun once more. As they trace back the events of what happened, they summon back each animal in the chain of events. Finally, the iguana reveals that it was indeed the mosquito’s fault because he caused him to have to put those sticks into his ears because he was unable to stand the lie telling of the mosquito.

To find out what happens to the mosquito, read Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears.

Our textbook characterized multicultural literature as books about people and the experiences they share either as a group or as individuals within a specific culture. This book falls under the category of multicultural literature because it is a West African folktale. It originally started off as being an oral tale passed down from generation to generation. In this story, the reason why mosquitoes began buzzing in people’s ears is explained.

One thing that really struck me while reading this story was not only the humor in the story but the illustrations are fabulous. The illustrators, Leo and Diane Dillion, actually won a Caldecott Medal for this book, and they were the first African American illustrators to do so. The vibrant use of color is breathtaking and would really attract young eyes. The thing I love the most about them though is the contrast between day and night. When the animals are about and about in the daytime, before the incident with the owlet occurs, the background is white. The colors are bold but have a soft feel 

still about them. 

However, when mother owl does not wake the sun and it stays nighttime longer, the background is changed to black. Everything becomes much more dramatic and the colors really pop on the page. Each animal is so defined and the lines are accented. I really loved these illustrations.

Throughout the story, there is evidence of personification everywhere. The animals talk and converse as humans do. Also, they have reasoning and logic like people do. The King Lion works almost like a detective to retrace the events leading up to the baby owlet’s tragic death in order to figure out what happened. There are also a lot of sound devices, like onomatopoeia that are used throughout the book.  When the animals moved, it is stated, like the iguana went off, “mek, mek, mek, mek” as if he were trudging along. The rabbit scurries across the field, “krik, krik, krik” and the crow cries, “kaa, kaa, kaa”. When reading through a second time, it may be fun for the students to say those words.

There are so many extension activities that you could do with this book. I think something that would be really fun for the students to do is do this as a play or reader’s theater and act out the events of the story! Students really get into plays and more hands-on types of activities. Also, this would be a great book to teach cause and effect. The relationship of how each event in the story triggers another is a great model of this skill. Also, sequencing the events in the folktale would be another good extension activity with this story. You could also have the students try to replicate this style of art with an art activity. If you color with crayons bright colors on a big of construction paper, you can paint over it with black paint and then use an art tool to scratch away the black to create a drawing. This would be a neat way to sort of replicate the bright colors and dark contrast of Africa at night that the illustrator captured. We all know students love art projects!

BIG Questions to use with your students: Do you think the iguana would have put the sticks in his eras if he knew what was going to happen? How may the story be different if iguana wouldn’t have put the sticks in and heard the python? Why do you think mosquito still feels guilty to this day? Do you think this is a reasonable explanation to why mosquitoes buzz in people’s ears? If you had to write your own folktale, what would you want to explain or show how something came to be? Can you figure out which animal saw the whole thing happen from the very beginning?