Crossculture folktales

Confi rming Pages

108 Part 2 Exploring Genres in Children’s Books www.mhhe.com/kieferbrief2e

Tale (Author) Culture or Country/Place of Origin

Cumulative Tales: An increasing repetition of the details builds up to a quick climax.

This Is the House That Jack Built (Tabback) United States

The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred (Vamos) Spanish tale

The Bossy Gallito (Gonzalez) Cuba

Story of a Boy Named Will (Kharms) Russia

Chicken Little (Kellogg) England

The Little, Little House (Souhami) Eastern European, Jewish

One Fine Day (Hogrogian) Armenia

Only One Cowry (Gershator) Dahomey, Africa

What about Me? (Young) Sufi (Middle East)

Pourquoi Tales: Folktales that explain why (French “pourquoi”) certain animal traits or characteristics or human customs have developed.

The Golden Flower ( Jaff ee) Puerto Rico

How Chipmunk Got His Stripes (Bruchac and Bruchac)

Raccoon’s Last Race: A Traditional Abenaki Story (Bruchac and Bruchac)

Native American

Native American

Tuko and the Birds (Climo) Philippines

Why the Sun and the Moon Live in the Sky (Dayrell) Africa

Tiger and Turtle (Rumford) India

No Dinner!: The Story of the Old Woman and the Pumpkin (Souhami) India

Beast Tales: Tales in which animals act and talk like human beings.

Beat the Story-Drum, Pum-Pum (Bryan) Africa

The Bremen-Town Musicians (Grimm brothers, Orgel) Germany

King Pom and the Fox (Souhami) Japan

Mabela the Clever (MacDonald) Africa

The Rabbit’s Tail (Han) Korea

Wonder Tales: Longer and more complicated tales about magic and the supernatural, often called fairy tales.

The Bearskinner (Schlitz) Germany

The Castle of Cats (Kimmel) Ukraine

The Great Smelly, Slobbery, Small-Tooth Dog (MacDonald) Great Britain

The Tale of the Firebird (Spirin) Russia

teaching feature 4.1 A Cross-Cultural Study of Folktale Types

kie24420_ch04_102-131.indd 108kie24420_ch04_102-131.indd 108 09/01/13 4:36 PM09/01/13 4:36 PM

Tale (Author) Culture or Country/Place of Origin

Realistic Tales: Stories from the oral tradition that involve no magic.

The Boy of the Three-Year Nap (Snyder) Japan

Dick Whittington and His Cat (Brown, Hodges) England

The Empty Pot (Demi) China

Fire on the Mountain (Kurtz) Ethiopia

Something from Nothing (Gilman) Jewish

teaching feature 4.1

Confi rming Pages

Chapter Four Traditional Literature 109

Ivan, the king’s youngest son, must seek out the fi rebird that is eating his father’s prized golden apples in Pirotta’s beautiful retelling of the Russian folktale Firebird. Published in the UK by Templar Publishing. Illustration copyright © 2010 Cath-

erine Hyde. Text copyright © 2010 Saviour Pirotta.

will sound like it is being told. Although folktales have many elements in common, it would be dif- fi cult to confuse a folktale from Japan with a folk- tale from the fjords of Norway. What are some of the things to look for when reading folktales? What are the characteristics common to all folktales? The box Guidelines: Evaluating Traditional Literature on page 110 summarizes the criteria to consider when evaluating this genre for children.

Characteristics of Folktales Plot Structures Of the folktales best known in chil- dren’s literature, even the longer stories are usually simple and direct. A series of episodes maintains a quick fl ow of action. If it is a “wise beast/fool- ish beast” story, the characters are quickly delineated, the action shows the inevi- table confl ict and resolution, and the ending is usually brief. If the tale is a romance, the hero or heroine sets forth on a journey, often helps the poor on the way, fre- quently receives magical power, overcomes obstacles, and returns to safety. The plot that involves a weak or innocent child going forth to meet the monsters of the world is another form of the “journey-novel.” In the Grimm brothers’ Hansel and Gretel, the children go out into a dark world and meet the witch, but goodness and purity

kie24420_ch04_102-131.indd 109kie24420_ch04_102-131.indd 109 09/01/13 4:36 PM09/01/13 4:36 PM