African Folktales at Internet Archive: Tokoloshi

For Week 11, I'm featuring anthologies (see Week 11 all on one page), and I knew I wanted to include this anthology of stories for children: Tokoloshi: African Folktales Retold by Diane Pitcher, just a click away at Internet Archive.

The stories come mostly from Bantu-speaking peoples from southern and also central Africa, although there are some stories from eastern Africa and from western Africa too. Diane Pitcher is herself from South Africa, and she has used a Zulu framework to tie the stories together, with Zulu names for the characters, as she explains in the introduction.

The illustrations by Meg Rutherford are lovely, and, as you can see, the hare is an important character here, which makes me happy:

The title character of the book, Tokoloshi, is a South African goblin-like water sprite, and you can read more about him at Wikipedia. It is because of Tokoloshi that I picked this book in particular. I just finished writing an interactive Twine game about cryptid characters, and I included Tokoloshi in the cast of characters; if you like Twine games, you can play the game here: Cryptid Encounters.

Meanwhile, for Tokoloshi and other storytelling delights, take a look at Pitcher's book, courtesy of the Internet Archive:

Tokoloshi:

African Folktales Retold

by Diane Pitcher