Children of Wax: African Folk Tales

I enjoyed these stories - Alexander McCall Smith's retellings of African folk tales. Actually, I found them very inspiring. Some of the stories are sad, but all of them quite magical.

These stories are both charming and alarming. They are mostly fables but, as McCall Smith says, the best thing about these tales are their unpredictability. Anything can and does happen. Mischievous hares wear the skins of lions. Leopards turn into women. Boys can survive being eaten by elephants. With McCall Smith's simple retelling, all this imaginative mayhem feels completely natural. McCall Smith has also kept the spirit of these tales intact, including their surprisingly dark bits which jus [...]

There's something very compelling about these folk tales. Not sure if it's the recurring theme of people getting out of animals after they've been eaten alive or what. I realize one can learn a lot about a culture through folk tales. I'd love to read more.

The actual book I listened to was "The Girl Who Married a Lion" but it is not listed. Children of Wax is one of the 30 stories in the book. They are great Aesop's Fable type stories that would be good for the whole family to listen to in the car.

This is a book of short tales from Africa. They are like Aesop's Fables from Africa. Morality plays for the young. The perspective was most interesting.

Really odd stories. I think I don't have the cultural context to appreciate them.

Interesting and sweet.