Cautionary Fables and Fairy Tales: Africa Edition review

Cautionary Fables and Fairy Tales: Africa Edition is 15 African fables drawn in a way that modern comic audiences can enjoy.   Fables just sound old, musty and not at all interesting to some people.  Parable doesn’t sound much more interesting either.  However, Cautionary Fables and Fairy Tales manages to make all of these fairy tales and fables fun, teach some lessons and does it all with varied artwork.

I initially read this because it looks like a children’s comic.  The illustration of the animals on the front and the light hearted title seem like it’s OK for children, plus it’s listed under Children’s and Fantasy.  The age recommendation at Comixology is 17+ only though.  Normally they reserve that for the horror comics.

Chiefs Heads is a story from Zimbabwe and drawn by Sloane Leong.  It’s an example of why the graphic novel may be recommended for ages 17+, as it has ‘non sexual nudity’.  Meh, it’s no big deal and is more akin to how rural African girls would be back in fable times.

It tells the story of two African girls who are on a quest to marry a prince.  Along the road they both receive suggestions and advice from a mouse, rabbit and an old woman.  The first girl doesn’t listen to the advice and gets eaten by the prince, who enters the room as a very large snake.  However, the second girl listened to the advice, was very kind to everyone and won the prince’s heart.

The stories are all drawn by different artists in different styles.  Some of them are dreamier while others are more realistic and have lessons that are simpler to grasp.  Likewise the length of each story isn’t standard with some of the shorter stories being much more interesting than the longer ones.

Why Turtles Live in the Water is like this. It’s only 4 pages long and is awesome.  The story is very short on words, has rounded cartoon art (which I’m not a fan of), but is one of the better stories in the book.

My favorite is The Disobedient Daughter Who Married a Skull.  The beautiful girl has plenty of offers to take a husband, but would rather do something fun like travel.  While walking in the market a skull notices her and plots a scheme to make her his bride.  The story is so deliciously weird that you’ll read the entire thing before you realize it.  Despite one of the lead characters being a skull, the story isn’t bloody, graphic or violent.

Cautionary Tales and Fables:  Africa Edition is a good gateway graphic novel that will inspire children to read more.  Because the stories are not typical and are ones that they aren’t familiar with they’ll have to read it-and will enjoy doing so.  The book has some mild cannibal references and non sexual nudity and is OK for kids 10 and up on our view.   Cautionary Tales and Fables: Volume 1 also exists and explores European fables.  Based on the African edition it would be a safe pick up too.