Home
  • Home
  • Latest Issue
  • Past Issues
  • Authors & Artists
  • Articles
  • Reviews
  • News
  • Forums
  • Search

Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters

  • View
  • Rearrange

Digital version – browse, print or download

Can't see the preview?
Click here!

How to print the digital edition of Books for Keeps: click on this PDF file link - click on the printer icon in the top right of the screen to print.

BfK Newsletter

Receive the latest news & reviews direct to your inbox!

BfK No. 108 - January 1998

Cover Story
This issue’s cover shows titles from Anthony Masters’ new ‘Weird World’ series aimed to grab reluctant readers. Anthony Masters is interviewed by George Hunt. Thanks to Bloomsbury Children’s Books for their help in producing this January cover.

  • PDFPDF
  • Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version
  • Send to friendSend to friend

Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters

John Steptoe
(Puffin)
32pp, 978-0140559460, RRP £6.99, Paperback
5-8 Infant/Junior
Buy "Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale (Picture Puffin)" on Amazon

This is a retelling of a traditional African folktale with magical overtones. The king’s messenger arrives from the city and, in time honoured fashion, announces that the king wishes to choose a bride and invites all the most beautiful daughters in the land to appear before him. Manyara and Nyasha, two sisters, fit the bill but Manyara was as bad tempered, selfish and evil as Nyasha was even tempered, kind and considerate. Manyara sets out to gain an unfair advantage over her sister, but the king makes the right choice and all ends well. This story, no more or less politically correct than the familiar tale of Cinderella, has inspired some lush, stylish illustrations by Steptoe, based on an idealised African landscape and the ruins of an ancient Zimbabwe city (discovered relatively recently) which together serve up a positive image of pre-colonial African civilisation. This paperback edition is a valuable addition to the growing stock of multi-cultural resources.

Reviewer: 
Errol Lloyd
3
  • About us
  • Contact us
  • Help/FAQ
  • My Account