BURY MY BONES BUT KEEP MY WORDS

Fourteen folktales from several regions of Africa, either collected by the author or adapted from hard-to-find printed sources. Fairman's deliciously lively writing belies his prefatory lament that ``a tale in a book is like a drum in a museum; it's silent, it's dead....'' Each story here is framed as a conversation between the storyteller—generally an older relative—and a thoroughly involved audience; side comments, rhetorical questions and invitations to join in on songs (often to a familiar melody like ``Jingle Bells'') or on sound effects make reading these almost as much a participatory experience as hearing them. From ancient Egypt comes the story of ``Zazamankh,'' whose difficult task is relieving Pharaoh's boredom; ``Omutugwa'' is a Kenyan Cinderella; in the pointed ``Hare and the White Man,'' a swindled human can't finger the culprit because all hares look alike to him. The stories feature a vigorous mixture of wisdom and foolishness, chills and hilarity, plus plenty of incidental information about village life in different areas. Brief source notes; occasional muted b&w illustrations. Fresh, funny, and almost audible. (Folklore. 10+)