Tikki Tikki Tembo

Arlene Mosel

Mar 1968 · Sold by Henry Holt and Company (BYR)

About this ebook

This ebook includes audio narration.

Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-
chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo!

Three decades and more than one million copies later children still love hearing about the boy with the long name who fell down the well. Arlene Mosel and Blair Lent's classic re-creation of an ancient Chinese folktale has hooked legions of children, teachers, and parents, who return, generation after generation, to learn about the danger of having such an honorable name as Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo.


Tikki Tikki Tembo is the winner of the 1968 Boston Globe - Horn Book Award for Picture Books.

Narrated by Marcia Gay Harden

Ratings and reviews

My mother read this to me in the mid 1980's when i was a very young lad. "Riki tiki tembo no surrendo",...., that'll always be a cherished memory. This experience was one of the happiest moments in a time filled with more bad than good. Funny, Ma still catches me off my guard with that phrase 😉

A children's book that I remember reading as a child. Now I'm reading it to my grandkids. What a great find!

The mother said my most prised position fell and with chang she said oh that miserable child

About the author

Arlene Mosel (1921-1996)’s debut children’s book, Tikki Tikki Tembo, was an American Library Association Notable Book and won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. In 1997, The New York Times named it one of the best 50 children's books of the previous 50 years. Mosel also wrote The Funny Little Woman, an Honor Book for the Hans Christian Andersen International Children's Book Awards.

Blair Lent (1930-2009) received the Caldecott Medal for The Funny Little Woman, and three Caldecott Honors. He is the illustrator of Ms. Mosel's Tikki Tikki Tembo, a bestseller since its publication in 1968, and Bruce Goldstone's The Beastly Feast.