Anna Carries Water
Anna Carries Water is a story of power of determination. Anna fetches water from the spring every day, but she can’t carry it on her head like her older brothers and sisters. In this charming and poetic family story set in Jamaica, Prize-winning author Olive Senior shows young readers how Anna achieves her goal and overcomes her fear.
Beautifully illustrated, printed, and written, author Olive Senior and illustrator Laura James together have tapped into a story instantly understandable to a child from any culture in this wide world in which we live. Sibling jealousy, the desire to be more grown-up than you are, and a good old-fashioned ridiculous fear combine to make this one of the more charming books written for children.
Anna is the youngest of six siblings she always joins her brothers and sisters after school to walk to the spring for water for their Jamaican home. Every day her older brothers and sisters get their water and place it on their heads. Never once do they have to hold their buckets or cans or empty cheese tins to keep them in place. As for Anna, all she has is a dinky coffee can. Even that ends up soaking her clothes when she tries to emulate her siblings’ style. She asks her eldest sibling Doris when she’ll be old enough to carry water hands free like the rest of them. All Doris can tell her is that “It just happens . . . so don’t worry.” Little does Anna realise that her phobia of cows, never an asset before, will offer the key to her little problem.
