A Global Storytelling Book for Children From Childsplay International
Lions, Dolphins, Tricksters, and Lazybones is a global storytelling book for children, created by Childsplay International and its local partners to share the voices and creativity of young people from communities around the world.
Available Globally – Get Your Copy from Trusted Retailers
Lions, Dolphins, Tricksters, and Lazybones is a global storytelling book for children, featuring a vibrant collection of multicultural stories from over a dozen countries, including Peru, Haiti, Kenya, Zambia, and Pakistan.
These tales—funny, scary, uplifting, and exotic—offer children a worldlier alternative to traditional folktales like Aesop’s and the Grimm Brothers’. Through storytelling sessions led by Childsplay International, the stories were shared with children and sometimes told by them, sparking imagination and cultural curiosity.
Filled with children’s illustrations and photos from storytelling sessions, the book reflects the resilience of vulnerable children—displaced, living in conflict zones, or facing poverty. Storytelling supports child development by helping them envision brighter futures.
Featuring a foreword by New York Times bestselling author Andrea Davis Pinkney.
What Our Partners Are Saying:
“Reading this book is meeting with emotions and cultures through the storytellers. It’s a healing tool for vulnerable children and fosters creativity, self-esteem, teamwork, and good judgment. I recommend it for classrooms, libraries, and everywhere.”
— Rebecca Kabuya Mbayo, Teacher, Malaika, The DRC
“Storytelling promotes peaceful coexistence by helping children see common ground and respect each other’s origins. This book nurtures understanding, unity, and lasting connection.”
— Richard Ochoka Okot, HAF-Uganda
“This book offers simple, powerful stories that inspire growth. Unlike many books in schools that reflect foreign worlds, this one represents us—and helps us learn about others too. I recommend it to every parent.”
— Gloria Ochola, Kenya
“Lions, Dolphins, Tricksters and Lazybones brings global insight to our learners, many of whom are visually impaired. It connects cultures and helps children feel like they’re part of a global community.”
— ANOPA Project, Ghana
ABOUT US
ChildsPlay International (CPI) is a non-profit that works to promote greater opportunities for play and free education where it has been curtailed — for example, because of war, famine, or natural disaster.
Join us as we explore the significance of play, its profound impact on children’s lives and development, and how we are committed to making a positive difference through play-based learning initiatives globally.
"Play Is The Work of Childhood"
- Jean Piaget -
Our Impact
Through tailored storytelling, free education, art programs, and the Olympics of Mind and Body, CPI helps children regain confidence, build critical thinking, and reconnect with their communities.
Reaching thousands of children across more than a dozen countries, CPI uses the power of play to foster learning and healing.
By organizing storytelling events, mask-making workshops, and performances, CPI provides a platform for vulnerable children to express themselves and grow.
Guided by Piaget’s wisdom that “Play is the work of childhood,” we recognize that play shapes essential qualities like resilience, integrity, and creativity in young minds.
Our Mission
Our mission is to foster greater opportunities for vulnerable children to play, learn, and develop while preserving local culture.
At CPI, play is fundamental to a child’s growth and we help create opportunities for play and learning in situations where it has been limited, such as during times of war, natural disaster, displacement or famine.
Together with local teams, we cultivate lasting play initiatives that respect and preserve diverse cultures, ensuring sustainable impact for generations to come.
Play Helps Heal Trauma
Trauma takes many forms – pandemics, war, poverty, HIV orphanhood, displacement – and it affects children the most. While we can’t rid the world of these conditions, CPI is dedicated to creating places of safety and normalcy for children through the power of play.
Play Engages the WHOLE Child
CPI recognizes that play and play-based learning engages not only the mind but the whole child. Through play-based learning, CPI gives vulnerable children a stronger sense of their own abilities through games, storytelling, mask-making and self-expression in the arts–engaging all their senses.
We design our play-based learning projects to engage the body, the heart, the voice and the imagination.
Play Conserves Culture
CPI believes that play and play-based learning are important to cultural conservation. Children’s games, dances, storytelling, or learning the local mask-making tradition, preserve culture. We collaborate with vetted locals to preserve cultural heritage and celebrate the diversity of play experiences.
Free Education and Play-based Learning
ChildsPlay International offers free education to the children in our programs. While we compensate our local partners for delivering CPI’s educational programs, we ensure that the children receive snacks, refreshments, and unrestricted access to all classes.
Holistic education goes beyond the classroom and includes various forms of learning, including formal, informal, and experiential learning.
CPI Is Proud To Partner With
Countries
Our mission is to foster greater opportunities for vulnerable children to play, learn, and develop while preserving local culture.
ChildsPlay International’s (CPI) pioneering program in Lusaka, Zambia, brings together children across a wide age range in dynamic storytelling sessions.
CPI's Storytelling program in Northern Uganda provides support to children living in refugee settlements. The program aims to facilitate their healing journey through the power of storytelling.
During two projects, we brought together different schools in local villages, for competitive exercises that were athletic, intellectual, and performances.
During multiple projects, we served a refugee camp, a shelter for homeless children, and a remote village impacted by Covid-19.
We focused on bringing play to orphans who frequently spent their non-school hours working in underground mines.
Since 2014, we have sponsored mask-making workshops for vulnerable children. We are starting several storytelling programs in the fall.
Partnered with locals to reintroduce children to play, traditional song and dance, creative activities and traditional games in areas impacted by the conflict.
