When the World Began: Stories Collected in Ethiopia

The classic stories of our childhood--''Cinderella,'' ''The Sleeping Beauty,'' Little Red Riding Hood''--exist only in books today, but they started their lives as oral tales told from one generation to the next. In Ethiopia, however, great treasuries of fairy tales still live in people's heads and have never been written down. Old people sit together in the evenings and tell each other stories that were already old a hundred years ago. Elizabeth Laird--a winner of the Reader's Choice award and the Children's Book award--spent two years traveling around Ethiopia and collecting the tales in this anthology. She was told stories by Muslims in the hot, dry deserts of the East; Christians from the cool, central Highlands; and people from even older religions from the warm, humid South. The different faiths and cultures are reflected in the stories, with their varying notions of God, heaven, and the spirit world. You will enjoy the funny stories with a twist, the exciting adventure stories of brave warriors and hunters, the clever stories of cunning and trickery, along with stories about ogres and kings and merchants and farmers and animals.