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Jump to navigationJump to searchHow Maasai Women Spoke to Cows: From the Oral Stories of Maasai Elders by Stephanie Zabriskie (view source)
Revision as of 12:52, 8 February 2026
, 8 Februaryno edit summary
''How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows is a children’s nonfiction book drawn from the oral traditions of Maasai elders in Ngorongoro, Tanzania.''
The Maasai are a cattle-herding people and this story writes down its oral tradition explaining how they came to be so. Cattle are status and wealth in Maasai culture but this doesn't tell the whole story of the intimate and symbiotic connection its people, and especially its women, have with their cows and for the natural world. The oral tradition retelling the many conversations Maasai women have had with their cows , does.
There's a lot to say about this gorgeous book - too many for a review, really. Let's start with the illustrations, which splice between the English and Swahili texts, joining them together. They are in rich, jewel tones and burst from the page. You want to touch them. It's a lovely page design, bringing the narrative to life and encouraging the language exploration ambitions of the book. I admire the care taken to make a profound whole from separate elements, all working together to represent an oral, not a written, tradition.
