Moonlight Stories My Grandma told Me
I had a friend who told me all about how sweet her childhood had been. She said her mother always tucked her in and read her bedtime stories before she slept. At first, I felt a little left out, because nobody ever told me bedtime stories in that way.
But then I remembered something. The smell of firewood burning, the taste of garden eggs and the stories I was told. not by the bedside, but in the most authentic way of all. We gathered outside, under the silver glow of the moon, when it was full and bright. After a simple evening meal, sometimes while chewing on fresh garden eggs dipped in pepper nut sauce, we sat together and listened.
The stories were not read from books, but spoken from the heart. They were woven with laughter, wisdom, and sometimes even warnings. They belonged to everyone, to the children who listened, to my who told them in our native language, and to the moon above that silently watched.
Those evenings shaped me. Nothing since has ever replaced that feeling: the cool night air, the hum of crickets, the circle of my cousins, siblings, neighbours and friends, and the voice of a storyteller carrying us into worlds of animals, tricksters, heroes, and lessons about life.
This book is my way of sharing that memory. They are not just “bedtime stories” as many know them, but moonlight stories passed down by grandmothers and elders, busy people who never forgot to remind us of who we were and what we must learn.
I would love to share those memories with you now, in the hope that you too may feel the magic of a story told beneath the moon.