#100BooksChallenge book #13 a few weeks back, I randomly found this book via Kindle Unlimited as a recommendation. I do love short stories and of course African fables.

About The Book:

The short stories in this book are typical African folktales from rural Copperbelt Province, Zambia. Sit, relax and have a good laugh. The short stories are funny, but they also convey timeless moral messages of African wisdom. These african folktales stories are usually told, in villages, from generation to generation, in the evenings by a big fire, just before going to bed.

In villages children have very close relationships to their grandparents who teach them what they need to know about life. The african folktales stories almost always teach a moral lessen. Unfortunately, even in Africa, children growing in big cities do not have this chance because their evenings are spent watching TV or surfing in internet.

In most of these stories animals and people live together, mingle with each other and sometimes Kalulus (Hares) marry human beautiful girls. This may sound strange because a hare can not, for instance, cook or marry a human princess. The truth is that the animals in the stories are not animals in the real sense. They are just character representation of people who behave in certain ways.

This was a very entertaining collection of short stories, clearly aimed at younger readers or to be read to them. Each story was enjoyable to read as, as an adult you could put things into context and imagine the animals as ‘types’ of people or personalities you may come across in life. As I read I hoped each story would have some kind of ‘moral of the story is’, that adults could take away. While I really enjoyed reading them all, and they were certainly entertaining, I found it hard to pick up a moral or lesson! Or what I could really show my son or a younger person as a ‘moral’ in life. Really for me this short read was all about entertainment factor, it was an okay read. I would read more of these short stories if the author were to publish more, but I’d love to have more deep and meaningful endings. That said they held me interest and I would recommend it as a short, quick read to pass some time, or when you fancy something more light-hearted to read. Three stars from me.