"Kent State professor and storyteller Offodile gathered these folktales, some familiar and some new, from Nigeria (his homeland) and other West African countries. His goal was to collect the stories of the elders before they were completely forgotten. Offodile introduces the collection with a brief discussion of the varied cultures of the region and the function of both story and teller in these societies. The tales are then arranged by country in alphabetical order, each section beginning with a map showing the country's continental location and a page of basic information on its geography and society. .. A glossary and an index of stories by subject is included. Recommended as a solid edition of folktale collections for public and academic libraries, this is also appropriate for middle and high school libraries." — Library Journal
"'The Orphan Girl,' an Igbo story of a cruel stepmother who forces the orphan Chika to retrieve water from the river on the day reserved for the ghosts, is perhaps the most widely known of the folk tales collected here. But the others, from trickster tales to origin stories, are equally fascinating. Although these tales share a common geographical background, they have not been selected on the basis of thematic similarity but rather as an acknowledgment of the complexity and diversity within West Africa… there is a wealth of cultural, linguistic, and religious traditions encompassed in the stories, which Offodile has effectively rendered in English. In an informative introduction, Offodile explains his desire to preserve a wide swath of stories from a world that may be changing too fast to hold on to its past. Readers will be grateful that these folk tales have been so artfully preserved." — Booklist