For thousands of years, people have been telling each other stories, passing them from generation to generation. Some of the popular and enduring tales in the world feature tricksters -- wonderfully inventive characters who outsmart others and use their wits to prevail in even the most difficult circumstances.

The eleven stories in this book present a fascinating cast of animal tricksters, gathered from the storytelling ring of the slave trade during the American Plantation Era. A fiddling alligator is outsmarted by a rabbit; a chameleon is tricked by a spider and a lizard into transforming himself into a boat; a turtle outwits a leopard and rides him like a horse.