The Very Tired Lioness

This book belongs to

Every child should own a hundred books by the age of five. To that end, Book Dash gathers creative professionals who volunteer to create new, African storybooks that anyone can freely translate and distribute. To find out more, and to download beautiful, print-ready books, visit bookdash.org.

The Very Tired Lioness
Illustrated by Imile Wepener
Written by Maren Bodenstein
Designed by Nathan McKay
Edited by Margot Bertelsmann
with the help of the Book Dash participants in Johannesburg on 27 October 2018.
ISBN: 978-1-928442-81-3
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). You are free to share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) this work for any purpose, even commercially. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the following license terms:
Attribution: You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
No additional restrictions: You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Notices: You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.
No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.

THE VERY TIRED

LIONESS

There was once a very old
and very tired lioness.

She was so tired that she slept all day.
And all night.

“Come and hunt with us,”
said her sisters and daughters.

But the lioness was
too tired.

“What’s wrong with her?”
asked the young impalas.
“Don’t go too close,” warned their mothers. “She might eat you.”

But the lioness just
flicked her ears to
chase away the flies.

One day the lioness woke up with a strange feeling that something was watching her.

When she looked up she saw a
boiling roiling creature in the tree.
“Who are you?” asked the lioness.

“I am the sun.
I have come to fetch you.”

“Go away,”
grumbled the lioness.
“I want to sleep.”

When the lioness opened her eyes again, the sun was still in the tree.
“Can’t you see, you are making us  all hot and thirsty?”

“It’s getting late,”
said the sun.
“Follow me.”

So the lioness slowly
got up and followed the sun.

“Happy hunting,” called her sisters
and daughters after her.
“See you! See you!” chirped the bird.

But the lioness didn’t
hear anything.

She just climbed higher
and higher and higher
into the sky.

“Phew, it is far,”
said the lioness.

“Not too far to go anymore,”
said the sun.
“You can rest when we get there.”

And so the lioness came
to stay with the sun.
All day she lay lazily
in its warmth.

But at night, when the sun
was asleep, she looked down
at the beautiful world
she had left behind.