Award winning author of 65 picture books and story collections, Robert D. San Souci has written a collection of trickster tales to show that the ‘fairer sex’ can be just as clever and resourceful as their male counterparts.

San Souci’s “tricky” gals include Molly Cottontail, Miz Goose, Sis’Duck and Miz Gransshopper. These eight delightful and fun stories will capture the reader or the story-listener. I can just envision a good storyteller using a lot of gestures and body language and voices to make these stories come alive.

The stories are long, but probably when told by the storyteller, the events will happen much quicker to keep the audience as enchanted as I was reading them. There is lots of humorous dialogue and rhyming phrases to keep the listener involved. I loved the southern dialect Mr. San Souci uses for his characters to talk. The storyteller who learns one or more of the stories will really get to play with the characters.

In one story, Miz Goose has Mistah Bear sitting on a nest of pumpkins because she told him he could hatch his own family. You know there’s going to be trouble when he finds out!!

Besides Mistah Bear, there is Mistah Slickery Sly- fox and Mistah Hare to play tricks on.

Virginia Hamilton, storyteller, author, folklorist, believes “that the animal tricksters were invented by communities to perform outlandish tricks. San Souci’s retelling of these folktales will bring them back for generations of new listeners and readers.”