James Earl Jones Narrating “Kapiti Plain”
A favorite childhood memory shared in remembrance of James Earl Jones.
We remember him as the voice of Mufasa—and Darth Vader—but who besides me can remember James Earl Jones (1931-2024) brilliantly narrating the story Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain (words by Verna Aardema, pictures by Beatriz Vidal) on telelvision’s Reading Rainbow?
Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain is a cumulative rhyme story, building tension and suspense as the poor animals thirst for water beneath a dark cloud that covers the plain:
This is the cloud all heavy with rain that shadowed the ground on Kapiti Plain. This is the grass, all brown and dead that needed the rain from the cloud overhead: The big, black cloud all heavy with rain that shadowed the ground on Kapiti Plain.
Here’s the whole clip I found on YouTube for you to enjoy and to remember James Earl Jones by. What is your favorite James Earl Jones memory?
A wonderful memory from long ago . . . Thanks you!
Oh that's beautiful. Its a wonderful remembrance of James Earl Jones and his deep resonant voice.
The poem is repetitive with its hypnotic rhythm until near the end after the arrow is shot and then the pattern changes.
And the rain falls.