The Story Thief by Andrew Peters
This retelling of a traditional African folktale explains how we came to have stories in the world. Nyame the sky god has a special treasure - in a big, brass chest are all the stories ever told. Anansi, the cleverest of spiders, sees that down on Earth, the people are bored. Unfortunately, she can't spin a tale, but she can spin a web. So she makes a ladder up into the sky, determined to bring back the stories, whatever it takes.