Fables and folk tales from around the world, honestly told. Seven volumes, each one a different part of the globe, all of them written to be read aloud.
For children of all ages who love a good story. For teens meeting these tales again. For grown-ups who never stopped loving the old ones. And for the person doing the reading, who is allowed to enjoy it too.
These tales were spoken long before anyone wrote them down, around fires and on porches and in kitchens. They are retold here for the voice rather than the eye, with refrains a child will chant back before the second telling is over, and short lines that stand alone where you are meant to slow down and let the room go quiet.
A chapter takes about ten minutes aloud, which is roughly the length of a bedtime. Two stories a night, or one if the day was long.
No story is treated as more sophisticated than another, and none is flattened into a stereotype of where it came from. Almost every tale comes from a collection now in the public domain, credited by name. Where one came down through a family instead, that is said plainly too.
Same voice, same promise, a different part of the world each time. Each volume stands on its own.
You already know the tortoise and the hare. You probably have not said it out loud since somebody said it to you.
The fables the whole world grew up on.
The oldest teaching stories on earth were never meant for silent reading. Here is how they were meant to sound.
From the Panchatantra and the Jataka tales, among the oldest story collections in the world, and from the high kingdoms of Tibet and Bhutan.
Anansi stories were built to be answered out loud. Your living room counts as a circle.
The tales that taught a continent how to be clever.
Some of these tales walked five thousand miles to reach this page. The last few feet are yours.
Turkish wise fools, Arabic wonders, and European wintertime stories.
The smallest creature in the tale is usually three moves ahead of the largest. Listeners work this out fast, and start cheering.
The small creature who is always three moves ahead.
Some stories are kept alive by books. These were kept alive by grandparents.
The Hitopadesha, the great story-books of Bengal and the Punjab, and two chapters the author heard first from a grandparent's own mouth.
Māui roped the sun to make the days longer. Reading aloud does roughly the same thing.
Two of these chapters were written down by Native authors telling their own people's stories.
Ten percent of the royalties from these books, and of the proceeds from the printables shop, is given away. It is shared between:
“The Bhotekoshi-Trishuli disaster was not just a local tragedy, it was a warning to the world.”Prime Minister Balendra Shah of Nepal, address to the United Nations General Assembly, September 2026
The Prime Minister told the Assembly that at least 1,400 people were confirmed dead and more than 6,000 were still missing after the Bhotekoshi-Trishuli floods.
Every culture has a story worth hearing, and every story gets a fair telling.
