Trickster Tales

Trickster Tales recount the adventures of those underdogs and eccentrics whose cunning and luck enable them to wriggle out of impossible situations and to surmount insuperable difficulties. The best known tricksters are Brer Rabbit from the Black American tradition, his African ancestor Ananse the Spider Man, and the Mullah Nasrudin whose adventures originate in the folklore of Turkey and the Middle East. All three of these rogues are represented here by refreshingly lesser known tales. Walker, a professional storyteller, also introduces us to tricksters from Native American, Bengali, Kampuchean, Russian and Swiss traditions, and he opens the collection with a tale about the ubiquitous Jack, the English representative of the trickster tradition. Many readers will find familiar motifs in the stories: a wizard hamstrung by a vainglorious display of his own magic; a banquet of soup prepared with an old iron nail; an old woman rolling home in a hollow gourd. The retellings in this collection are vivid and simple, preserving both the clarity and the conversational flourishes of the oral tradition, and providing a powerful support for teachers who want to try oral retellings themselves, or to encourage younger readers to do so. The book is strongly and attractively designed, and the illustrations brighten the text without upstaging it.