In African communities, before Western-style education became widespread, the telling of stories, proverbs, and riddles was one of the principal means of moral, social, and spiritual instruction for both young and old. An integral part of social life, storytelling would attract an audience from a household or from the whole community and was often accompanied by singing and dancing.Although radio, television, and cinema have largely displaced the art of storytelling in most African communities, in the small, more remote villages, the tradition lives on. This unique collection of ten traditional African "Ananase" stories, retold by Rose Esi Arkou-Tewia Blissett -- a native of Himan-Presta in western Ghana, allows them to be read and told all over the world.