Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters

Title: Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale  

Author: John Steptoe 

Traditional Literature #1

According to the foreword in the book, Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters was inspired by a real African folktale. The story is about a man named Mufaro who lives in a small village in Africa with his two beautiful daughters, Manyara and Nyasha.  While Nyasha is kind, hardworking, and honest Manyara is selfish, jealous, and cruel. However, she is only acts this way in the absence of her father. When the Great King wants a wife Mufaro decides to send both of his daughters for him to see. However, Manyara decides to take manners into her own hands and leave for the city where the King lives deep into the night. She comes across several people who need help but refuses to offer them assistance because they are unworthy of her as she believes she is to become the next Queen. Meanwhile, Nyasha and her father set out towards the city to meet the King. Along the way, Nyasha runs into the same people in need of help and offers her assistance without hesitation. Come to find out, the Great King is a shape shifter who posed as the people in the forest in need of help. Guess which daughter he decides to marry? 

I personally enjoyed this book very much. The illustrations are beautiful and add to the story greatly. Children could spend several minutes just taking in what the pictures have to offer.The tale itself was new to me but reminded me of Cinderella. To me, the moral of the story is that being mean and nasty doesn’t get you anywhere. Nice guys do not finish last and in fact they are always rewarded for their efforts in the end. I would definitely include this traditional literature piece in my classroom not only because it is multicultural, but because it offers a great lesson for any child to learn. I could see this book as being a great read aloud story during a unit about fairytales and comparing them cross culturally. It is always good for children to see how other cultures interpret classic tales such as this.