This particular story is mythic rather than scientific. However, a cumulative tale that builds on itself is a good narrative choice for an environmental story, because cumulative tales emphasise connections between things.

Why the cumulative story structure? These can be tedious to read for tired parents, especially if you’re reading at bedtime in my experience I start yawning uncontrollably. Verna Aardema has brought the original story closer to the English nursery rhyme by putting in a cumulative refrain and giving the tale the rhythm of “The House That Jack Built.” MARKETING COPY STORY STRUCTURE OF BRINGING THE RAIN TO KAPITI PLAIN PARATEXTĪ cumulative rhyme relating how Ki-pat brought rain to the drought-stricken Kapiti Plain. This rhyme is clearly meant to be shared between two or more people, each taking a part. It’s a story about an old woman and her pig.

On page 123, I was interested to find a Nandi equivalent of “The House That Jack Built” cumulative tales, because this style of story can be found all over the world. Here is a PDF of a book written by a white person about the Nandi people in 1909, so you can guess what to expect, but it does include a collection of Nandi folktales. This picture book is subtitled “A Nandi Tale”. I don’t know how Kapiti is meant to be pronounced - semi-arid lands in Kenya with a 550mm average rainfall - but my pronunciation is influenced by the name of the south-western North Island of New Zealand, called Kapiti Coast, in which the first syllable is stressed. Vidal’s illustrations have a folktale vibe about them, partly due to those nice white outlines reminiscent of a woodcut.

Bringing the rain to kapiti plain book