Tiny Tales from Africa: The Animals (vol. 2)

35.2 MB·English

by  Laura Gibbs

Tiny Tales from Africa:
The Animals (Volume 2)
TINY TALES FROM
AFRICA: THE ANIMALS
(VOLUME 2)
LAURA GIBBS
Tiny Tales from Africa: The Animals (Volume 2) by Laura Gibbs is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0
International License, except where otherwise noted.
The CC BY-NC-SA license applies to the text contents of this book.
For additional information regarding image credits and licensing, see
the Image Credits section in the back of the book.
CONTENTS
About This Book 1
The Stories 3
Bibliography of Sources 221
Image Credits 226
List of Titles 231

ABOUT THIS BOOK
This is the second in a series of books featuring African animal
tales. You’ll <nd many tricksters here: there’s Rabbit (the
ancestor of Brer Rabbit and Tio Conejo), along with Tortoise,
Spider, and also Mouse-Deer, Neotragus pygmaeus, an African
antelope barely a foot tall. There are “pourquoi” stories like
how Warthog got his tusks and how Crab got his shell, plus
stories of magic and supernatural adventure. These tales come
from many di:erent African traditions; see the list of sources
in the back of the book. For even more information about each
story, plus a free audiobook version, go to:
Africa.LauraGibbs.net.
The paragraph you just read is 100 words long, as is this
paragraph, and that’s also the length of each story in this book.
The stories go fast, but you can slow down when you <nd one
you like. Read it again. Read it aloud. Let it sink in. Maybe
even write your own version of the story, using your
imagination to add more details. Meanwhile, if you don’t like
a story, don’t get bogged down; just move on to the next one.
You can <nd many more African animal tales, along with
100-word stories from other cultural traditions, here:
100Words.LauraGibbs.net.

THE STORIES
4 | THE STORIES
1. Creator Gives Horns to the Animals
Long ago, the animals had no horns.
Then Creator called them to come get their horns.
Bu:alo and Bushbuck, Eland and Antelope, all the animals
who wanted horns stopped grazing and ran to receive
Creator’s gifts.
But Zebra didn’t run. He stayed where he was, grazing. He ate
and ate and ate.
Then, when he <nally arrived to get his horns, there weren’t
any left.
There were only long ears, stripes, a mane, and a big mouth.
No horns.
Then all the horned animals laughed at Zebra. “It’s your own
fault,” they said, “because you were so greedy for food.”
[an Ila story from Zambia]