Philippine Folk-Tales

"Philippine Folk-Tales" by Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, Fletcher Gardner, Laura Watson Benedict, and W. H. Millington is a gathering of old stories from the Philippines, put together in the early 1900s. These stories come from different parts of the islands, like Visayan and Tagalog areas, and they show off Filipino culture, teaching lessons about being good, being smart, and what it means to be human. The first story, "The Monkey and the Turtle," tells of a tricky friendship that goes wrong when a Monkey gets greedy and doesn't treat the Turtle right, so the Turtle gets even. Then, there's a story about a farmer who finds a magic stone that lets him become invisible so that he can help his family by stealing after losing his crops. From the very beginning, the book mixes funny stories with important lessons about right and wrong that show what Filipino life is all about.