Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales (Aesop Accolades (Awards))

This is a lovely book. I wish I had had it when I still taught social studies, since I did a unit on African folktales. There is a great assortment of tales, and many I have not found in other sources. Each story has its own illustrator, so there is a wide variety of style represented.

Book Description: W.W. Norton & Company. New. 0393052125 Hardcover. 100% BRAND NEW. Mint condition. No markings whatsoever. Another Mirage Best Buy with immediate shipping. Binding is HARDCOVER.

This is a very rich book, full of stories that are retold by various storytellers and authors. The illustrator varies for each story, so we sample a variety of styles while reading the stories. Most stories are about animals, and tell of creation, spells, challenges, or tests of courage. The tales

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are full of colorful characters, who are sometimes tricksters, sometimes loyal friends, and sometimes a human under a spell or disguised as something else. I appreciate the notes before each tale that discuss common themes or connected legends. A map accompanies the table of contents to show the suspected origin of each story. Although many reviews list this for as young as first grade or 8 years old, it felt to me like the reader should be a bit more advanced. As a read-aloud for the younger set, it would be great to practice imagination skills, since there is typically only one illustration for a story. For older elementary children, it would be useful for comparing themes or the roles of certain animals with other legends and folktales. Many of the stories explain characteristics of animals (why a zebra is striped, why monkeys are slim and fast) and so this could be a great accompaniment to a science unit. It could be fun to learn about the various aspects of animals, perhaps draw them, explain their suspected purpose, and then look for folktales that provide their own explanation.

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A teaser I suppose. Lovely recording of two African tales I had not heard before. Whoopie Goldburg and Alan Rickman reading, what could go wrong? These remind me of Rabbit Ears Radio, a program where celebrities read stories for children aloud. Charming.

This is a very rich book, full of stories that are retold by various storytellers and authors. The illustrator varies for each story, so we sample a variety of styles while reading the stories.

After learning about Nelson Mandela it would be interesting to bring in this book to share with children. It includes amazing African folktales with lions, snakes and tricksters. It was amazing to realize that folktales that are told really do include the environment around them. Rarely do African

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folktales include princesses. Most of them talk about loins and snakes.

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I love this anthology of African folktales. These various folktales all give explanations for the world around us. This book can also be used to introduce studies of Africa. I can also use this book to introduce Nelson Mandela into the classroom. The visuals of the story are esthetically pleasing.

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It was very interesting to see the various styles of art throughout this book.

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The Lion, The Hare and The Hyena written by Gwuido Mariko and illustrated by Tamsin Hinrichsen - Simba the lion lives alone. He leg is injured is unable to hunt for himself. One day Sunguru the Hare passes by his cave and cares for Simba until he is able to regain his strength. One day Nyangau the

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Hyena tries to befriend Simba so he is able to get the bones that are near Simba's cave. The first attempt fails and he tries again. While Hare is out, Hyena tells Simba that Hare is purposely giving him the wrong treatment. When Hare returns Simba informs him of what Hyena has said about him. Hare had been suspicious of Hyena and responds that he needs a piece of skin of a Hyena to fully heal him. Simba stripped a piece of skin from Hyena before he has any time to react. The hairs on Hyena's back were coarse and stood up and to this day still do and so do all the hairs on all hyenas.

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Narrated by celebrities. How appropriate to be listening to this while the World Cup is going on in South Africa. I don't seem to do well listening to short stories because sometimes my mind would drift and I would have to listen to it again. But in general, the celebrity readers (Alan Rickman,

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Charlize Theron, Samuel Jackson, Whoopi Goldberg among many) seem to enjoy their presentations and make the stories come alive. The audio ends with full versions of the songs that appear in some of the stories.

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This is pretty much what the title says: a collection of African folktales. I listened to the audio.

I don't always do well with short stories, as I often find them too short to get really interested. Combine that with an audio, where it's easy to get distracted, and I really missed a lot. I did

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enjoy the stories that I managed to pay attention to the majority of. Two that stood out for me were about animals and the environment (which shouldn't be a surprise!).

What I particularly enjoyed about the audio was the music and songs that were added in. The songs were mostly part of the stories, but all the songs were replayed at the end, as well. The stories were all written (or rewritten) by different people and they were all read by someone different. I recognized the voices of Whoopi Goldberg and Alan Rickman, but the rest of the narrations were done by other actors, such as Matt Damon, Forest Whittaker, Gillian Anderson, Scarlet Johansson...).

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I can't recommend this one highly enough - I enjoyed almost every single bit of it. Everyone did a great job with narration, and the stories were all good, and some of them excellent.

My hands down favourite was King Lion's Gifts narrated by Ricardo Chavira. Honourable mention goes to The Mother

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that Turned to Dust narrated by Helen Mirren; it is a timely, sad and excellent story, but it ran a bit long and thus lost a bit of its impact. The Guardian of the Pool wasn't special story-wise, but Gillian Anderson's voice was mesmerising.

The music was a great complement and when stories required a native tongue, a native speaker lent their voice, and it was perfect. My copy of the audiobook had rather abrupt transitions between stories, but that's not news with a lot of audio editions.

If you like folktales, this one is definitely worth a listen.

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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

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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.

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This audio anthology of folktales is one of the best things I've listened to all year. I really loved all the different narrators, and the plentiful music. I also liked that the stories didn't last too long, so if you zone out for a minute to pay attention to driving you don't have to wait very

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long to catch the beginning of a new story.

I found it really interesting how different the stories were from what I imagined "African folk tales" to be. There are slightly more modern ones and ones that are heavily Muslim - influenced, and ones that I could have sworn I'd heard before in a European context. Fascinating.

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