Best-loved Folktales of the World

Joanna Cole; Jill Karla Schwarz
Doubleday; Paperback;  792 pp.

A Best Books for Children award winner, this collection has over 200 folk and fairy tales from all over the world. It encompasses all cultures and is arranged geographically by region. We like this book particularly because Cole, as editor, has chosen such well-written versions of folk and fairy tales. It is used as part of the storytelling and orality experiences in the Foundation Year, and can be used as a resource in later grades.

The Original Mother Goose

Blanche Fisher Wright
Harper Collins; Hardcover; (unpaged)

A consummate collection of traditional nursery rhymes, this lush book gives children an appreciation for the rhythm of language and the delight of poetic expression. Mother Goose is an important first book for orality.

Living Books Press
Aesop's Fables
with Scripture References

Living Books Press;
available in both paper and hardcover gift edition;
236 pp.

The Living Books Aesop's Fables contains—
—270 fables
—Scripture passages to highlight each moral
—A glossary of unfamiliar words
—An alphabetical index of the morals
—A guide for further study for parents, students, and teachers.

The Living Books Press Aesop's Fables offers a unique edition, translated by V.S. VernonJones. A republication of the 1912 edition with illustrations by the incomparable artist Arthur Rackham and introduction by G.K. Chesterton, author of Orthodoxy and Everlasting Man.

The Three Billy Goats Gruff and Other Read-Aloud Stories

Carolyn Sherwin Bailey, Editor
Dover; Paperback; 96 pp.

A treasury of time-honored tales from many lands which includes the title story and such old favorites as “Johnny Cake”, “The Three Bears”, “The Little Old Woman Who Went to the North Wind”, “The Wonderful Pot”, “The Gold Bugs”, “The Story of Lambikin”, many others. This is a perfect sequel to Aesop’s Fables used in Grade One, for gaining storytelling skills.

Just So Stories

Rudyard Kipling
Dover; Paperback; 99 pp.

A dozen imaginative fables by one of the world’s great storytellers. Kipling proposes whimsical explanations of how certain animals acquired their distinctive physical characteristics.

Stories to Solve

George Shannon; Peter Sis, illustrator
Harper Collins; Paperback; 60 pp.

How can a thirsty crow drink from an almost-empty pitcher, and how does arresting a stone help a judge find a boy’s stolen money? This book presents fourteen intriguing mysteries from world folklore. Each brain-teasing tale is followed by a simple explanation of the solution, while notes at the back of the book describe the origins of these classic mysteries. Grade Three students will learn to tell these stories as part of their oral language experiences.

More Stories to Solve: Fifteen folktales from around the world

George Shannon
Harper Trophy; Paperback; 64 pp.

A sequel to Stories to Solve, Shannon’s choice of folk stories are real brain-teasers and yet easy to learn to tell. In the stories, you will find: How did a single firefly win a fight against one hundred apes? How did the priest catch a thief with a rooster? How did a student outwit the king? How did a frog escape from the pitcher of cream?