Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears

Aardema, V. (1975). Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ear. New York, NY: Dial Books.

In this African folktale Verna Aardema, takes readers through a forest to see a giant chain of events. It all starts with an iguana getting bugged by a mosquito. He doesn't want to hear the insect talk anymore so he puts sticks in his ears. Then a python tries to speak to the iguana, but since he can't hear, he keeps walking. The python becomes fearful thinking the iguana is mad at him and is trying to hurt him. He slithers into a rabbit hole to hide. The rabbit seeing this gets scared and runs off. A crow sees the rabbit running and sends out a warning call to the other animals in the forest. A monkey hears this call and assumes a beast is coming to attack the animals. He bounds through the trees and inadvertently knocks an owlet out of the nest and it dies.

This upsets the mother owl so much, she refuses to do her job, waking the sun. So the forest stays under a night sky. The animals have a meeting to find out why the night is lasting so long. King Lion asks the Mother Owl. She says she is too upset to wake the sun because the monkey killed one of her babies. The animals proceed to unravel the story and end up at realizing this is all the mosquito's fault. They decide to punish the bug. He hears this and goes into hiding. He goes around and whining in people's ears asking if the other animals are still mad at him. Thus the reason why mosquitoes are always buzzing around people.

As all folktales do, this one explains an occurrence in nature. The illustrations are bright and not the typical drawings. Children do like this story. I have read it every year when we study traditional literature. The onomatopoeia in the story is a unique way to show "animal speak". Teachers could use this as a lesson to show why it is always important to not lie or how one lie can cause a series of bigger problems.  I like to use it to show sequence and cause and effect in literature.