The Krio text of my bilingual folktale book, How Baboon Got a Shiny Rump, is masterful. Have you read it? If not, you’re missing out. It is a transliteration of a delightful recorded storytelling session with a group of children.
By way of contrast (now that recently the English translation of the Krio text passed through the creative hands of an experienced storyteller), I am seeing the English translation along with the illustrations as a guide for oral storytelling, in addition to its intended purpose as a reading book for children. As a guide, the English text provides the intent of each section of the story and the spirit of the story to deliver face to face.
As an illustration of how this works, here is what happened when the storyteller, Kewulay Kamara, was reading the story in English to a group of children who were helping him translate it into Kuranko. They came across the song…
A Writing Place 