I flipped through this book to decide if I wanted to read it (despite a quote by Bill Cosby on the cover... yuck,) and the beginning of the book immediately hooked me. The first pages feature a map that marks which part of Africa each story comes from. The Table of Contents also indicates the origin of each story-- i.e.- "The Enchanting Song of the Magical Bird" (Tanzania). It also features some background on Nelson Mandela's life and his history with apartheid, as well as a Forward written by him, explaining that, "This collection offers a handful of beloved stories, morsels rich with the gritty essence of Africa, but in many instances universal in their portrayal of humanity, beasts, and the mystical."

As you read, each folktale has a small blurb that highlights the message, the origin, the recorder, and/or the illustrator. This helps the reader anticipate what the setting and the meaning might be before starting, especially for young readers. Some of these prefaces also note the evolution of these stories, including some elements that might be different in different versions of the story (like that the characters in one story might be a chameleon and a lizard OR a tick and a hare, depending on which retelling you hear.) Most of the stories are told through the perspectives of African animals, though there are also stories featuring humans and other characters, including the Moon as a character in "The Message"! A final element of the book that I loved was that it used traditional African language, lyrics, poetry, etc. throughout. "The Snake with Seven Heads" starts with "Sukela ngantsomi. Chosi." which means, "Once upon a time... Tell the story." and it ends with "Phela phela ngantsomi" or "The story is finished." ( )

This book is a wonderful treasury of folktales from around Africa. The tales come from Zambia, Cape Malay, Cape Dutch, Malawi, South Africa, and Botswana. The tales have great morals such as the cat who lived with the lion (happily I might add). There are songs which have lyrics that you can sing along to, and the art is beautiful. I enjoyed reading this book, but it was very long for a small child. I think it would be the kind of book that would need to be broken up over the year. This book would probably be best to be a read aloud because some of the words are hard to pronounce.

I purchased this audiobook for my university library's collection because it won Audie Awards in 2010 for Audiobook of the Year and for Multi-Voiced Performance.  I've grown to really like multi-voiced audiobooks, so I figured this audiobook would be a winner all the way around, especially since I was looking for something short before starting a longer book for an upcoming day with six hours of driving.

Unfortunately, I was somewhat disappointed in this book - mostly because of irritations in the audio quality.  The 22 folktales are read by various celebrities, and some readers are better than others.  A number of them have a very annoying quirk of letting their voices drop to a whisper in some parts and boom out in others, which doesn't always work well in an automobile when road noise competes.  I had the same issue with the musical interludes - while the songs are great for providing a taste of the different musical styles in Africa, some are played at ear-bursting volume. It's also difficult, with the package design, to read the names of some of the narrators and titles of some of the stories, because the listings are in small print and are placed BEHIND the plastic holders for the relevant CDs.

There is a PDF available on the third disc which has a map indicating where each tale originated.  There's also a brief description of each tale and its background, along with an illustration, followed by a section on the authors (which in the case of the traditional literature tales, would be retellers).  The PDF also has the website for the audiobook, which includes extensive biographies of each of the celebrity narrators, as well as some comprehension quizzes, discussion questions, and coloring pages that can be downloaded (since this is supposedly an audiobook for children, although I think it's more appropriate for older children and adults).  A second PDF has track listings, song lyrics (five of the interlude songs are played in full on the last CD), and a helpful glossary, while a third PDF has complete track information.

I was surprised to learn that five additional tales (which apparently are in the print version of this book) are available for download by separate purchase.  At $2.27 each at Audible, I passed.

My gripes aside -  there are some very good stories in this audiobook, and most of the celebrities read them with good emoting.  My favorite was "King Lion's Gifts," a pourquoi tale that explains why certain animals look or sound the way they do.  Never heard of the reader of this tale - Ricardo Chavira - but he was quite good, especially at expressing Lion's aggravation with the other animals.  There are also fables, myths, African versions of classic folktales, literary fairy tales, and a number of trickster stories on the three discs.

The celebrity narrators all donated their time, and the audiobook publisher (Hachette Audio) donated all its profits from its sales to ANSA (Artists for a New South Africa), which in turn donated 20% to the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund.  So, definitely worth a listen.

© Amanda Pape - 2018

[This audiobook was borrowed from and returned to my university library.] ( )

This is a collection of folktales read by an astonishing collections of movie stars who all donated their time and talents to create this fundraiser for children in South Africa orphaned and impacted by HIV/AIDS. Since so many African tales include singing and music, this collection does as well. Some of the stories are funny, some are touching, some are wise, and some are just strange. ( )

An amazing collection of African Folktales from all over the continent. The book is commissioned by Nelson Mandela with the purpose of keeping Africa's rich cultural traditions alive. The stories are perfect length for a bedtime story. The illustrations are diverse and beautiful, coming from dozens of artists mostly from Africa.