Traditional stories have been told aloud for hundreds of years. Even though they aren’t meant to be taken literally, they stay with us because they share timeless truths about what it means to be human.

People of all ages love watching tricksters get into trouble—and wriggle right back out again. Today we laugh at characters like Bugs Bunny, the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, Ace Ventura, and even Bart Simpson. But tricksters have been around much longer than cartoons and movies. Every culture in the world has its own clever mischief‑maker. In Africa, there’s Anansi the Spider. In the American Southwest, Coyote causes chaos. In the Pacific Northwest, Raven stirs things up. In the American South, Rabbit is always ready with a trick. Ireland has the leprechaun, and South America has the sly Fox. Josepha Sherman gathered forty of these wonderful stories from around the globe.

Anyone who has ever watched a great storyteller hold a whole room spellbound—without costumes, sets, or music—has probably wondered how they do it. This collection explains the secret: it all starts with a really good story. And the 40 storytellers in this book know exactly what that means. They’re some of the most beloved tellers in the country, each sharing a tale that’s been tested on even the squirmiest, most hard‑to‑please audiences.