Children Bedtime Stories: Narrated from the Perspective of Ajok Village in South Sudan

By James A. Garang, Ben Alic and Maria Ayak

The booklet contains fifteen short bedtime stories. They cover creation accounts, tales about a giant called Choldit, and other related stories featuring lions, foxes, elephants, and other creatures. Each story is brief and crafted in a way that teaches children or adults, too, certain ethics. The authors pointto morals learned at the end of each story. These oral stories, indeed, enable children to appreciate nature and, by extension, teach them lifelong values worth emulating. They teach children to shun out vices, such as deceit, cowardice, and wickedness, among others. These stories are unique too; they come from a remote and unknown villageAjok. Given that oral stories are from a memory, which is bound to fail, they may not be the same across every village in South Sudan among the Dinka Malual, let alone the entire Jieng. Hence, readers should expect even village variations if they are to read other accounts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543451658

James A. Garang

BENJAMIN ALIC GARANG As a fourth grader, Ben lives with his parents in Falls Church, Virginia, and he goes to St. James Catholic School. Like most kids who dream big and modest at times, Ben wants to learn more about computers with an express aim to secure a job with Best Buy, his favorite shopping store for Nintendos and other electronics. MARIA AYAK KENYANG Maria, who currently lives with her family in Falls Church, Virginia, is a first-year student at Northern Virginia Community College. She aspires to attain a diploma in nursing or public health. This has been her dream since elementary school at Ajok Village and through adult education in Kenya before moving to America in 2012. JAMES ALIC GARANG James holds a PhD in economics from University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His research interests are in macroeconomics and development economics with a focus on financial sector development. Serving previously as a Senior Economist at Ebony Center for Strategic Studies, Deputy Dean & Assistant Professor of Economics at Upper Nile University in South Sudan, he is now on leave and working in D.C. A prolific writer whose works have appeared in peer-reviewed journals and popular outlets, he also relishes oral stories, a fact which inspired this collection.

Book preview

Narrated from the Perspective of

Ajok Village in South Sudan

Benjamin Alic Garang

Maria Ayak Kenyang

James Alic Garang

Copyright © 2017 by Benjamin Alic Garang,

Maria Ayak Kenyang & James Alic Garang. 766421

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 09/22/17

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Contents

Acknowledgment

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Creation from the Perspective of Ajok Village

Chapter 3 The Cunning Fox and His Sister

Chapter 4 Many Tales, One Giant

Chapter 5 Innocence of Children and Other Tales

To our endearing children, Alic Jr., Adhot, Adut, and Guot.

Acknowledgment

This booklet saw the light because a number of friends offered abiding support. First, we would like to appreciate my longtime friends Manoi Athian Manoi and Bak Barnaba Chol for providing initial and useful comments on the manuscript. And before submission, two colleagues, in the persons of Garang Kuot and Chol Isaac Achuil, provided us with insightful suggestions, which greatly improved the manuscript. We sincerely acknowledge Garang Kuot for contributing to the development of three stories in this short anthology.

Second, we appreciate our mother, Abuk Jana Kuol, and aunt Adut Lual Guot for sharing these stories with the third author when he was growing up at Ajok Village, Marialbai County, in Lol State. Equally, we owe deep gratitude to our