About these readers

Between 1996 and 2001, storytellers in every region of Ethiopia shared their traditional tales so they could be written down. From that collection, Elizabeth Laird rewrote a large selection in simplified English to make readers for Ethiopian schools — illustrated books that let young people practise reading English through stories from their own country.

This site is a faithful, modern rebuild of that resource: 88 readers across 9 regions, each with pre-reading questions, exercises and a teachers' answer key, the original illustrations, a downloadable PDF per region, and a Read aloud button.

The companion archive of the tales in their original form — in English and Amharic, many in the storyteller's own recorded voice — lives at ethiopianfolktales.com.