Picturebooks, Fables & Fairytales (Reading Reflections Week 1)

-Once Upon a Time

History 

Storytelling has a rich and beautiful history, from tribal chants set to rhythm that help along with tasks such as paddling a canoe or grinding corn or the tales of the bards from long ago, who used words and song, and music to pass news of the time. This is one of the first thoughts that come to mind when reflecting on Greene and Del Negro’s (2010) Storytelling Art and Technique. And learning about the first written story called the Westcar Papyrus, found on an Egyptian papyrus found between 2000 and 1300 B.C.E. How awesome is that!

 

But storytelling was not only used to relay current news and recount heroic deeds, it was also used as a way to teach moral and social values and continues to do that even today. The fables from our childhood, where there is always a lesson learned in the end. I remember the tortoise and the hare in which the slow and plodding tortoise wins the race or the lion and the mouse, where you learn that even someone incredibly small can make a difference. The fairytale of the young, abused girl and her glass slipper, or the beautiful girl trapped in a castle by a beast. These tales have been translated, reimagined, and retold, by numerous storytellers.

 

Updates, Changes and Commonalities

Most of today’s fable content is attributed to Aesop and I’ve discovered that he even receives credit for some published long after he died (   ). But storytellers are also taking creative license to tell the same stories with a twist of the bizarre and a shift in the moral or lesson which can bring a sense of satire and laughter. Roter Krause’s, Fables Aesop Never Wrote, does this. Alex Smith does a retelling of red riding hood with a lion and a jungle in Little Red and the Hungry Lion. But the goal remains the same, tell a great story, have an adventure, and leave a message behind.

Even though updates, translations, and modification can be amazing, Greene and Del Dengro (2010) also teach us that truncating a story or changing events or endings can change the rhythm of the telling, the descriptive elements that help draw the word pictures for your audience, and even the meaning the original story intended to leave.  There is an art to storytelling, to engaging your audience and taking them on this journey with you. You, yourself must enjoy and believe in your story, but it’s equally important to have the RIGHT story.

 

One of my greatest pleasures during my discovery of picture books, fables, and fairy tales this week, was the array of other countries’ stories that have been interpreted and translated to share their culture, their tales. I think in the telling, we discover that although the country of origin and original languages were different, some of the morals taught and lessons learned were very similar, such as Beverley Naidoo’s Cinderella of the Nile and her retelling of one the earliest “Cinderella” stories.

Diversity in Materials

While searching through picture books I saw that today’s children can find themselves better represented within the material. Books such as Parker Looks Up, Chocolate Me, and And Tango Makes Three provide stories that allow my nephew to see himself or people that look like him in the stories we read together or can help better explain what another family may look like. I’ve noticed that at his current age (6yrs old), he does better when there are not a lot of words on the page and lots of pictures and graphics. He gets excited when I emphasize or place action in certain places in the story. I want him to have a love of books and stories, and I think showing him how exciting they can be, can only help.

 

This Weeks Reading List

I went through my entire childhood, never seeing myself in the stories I read, never reading about someone who looked like me or live in a culture similar to mine. I’m glad writers are writing the stories they wished were available when they were children, and that publishers and libraries are working to make them available.

General Picture Books

The picture books I chose this week reflect that I think. I took an opportunity to see what new stories are available and what new ones I could potentially talk my nephew into:

 

City Green by DyAnne DiSalvo-Ryan

 The Patchwork Bike by Maxine Beneba Clarke

 

Parker Looks Up: An Extraordinary Moment by Parker Curry & Jessica Curry

 Let’s Dance by Valerie Bolling

  

The Little Little Girl With the Big Big Voice by Kristen Balouch

 

And Tango Makes ThreeAnd Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson & Peter Parnell

 

Chocolate Me! by Taye Diggs

Fables

The fables I selected were primarily new tellings and images of the old tales and were interesting and entertaining reads. Fables have a moral and teach you a lesson. One of the titles that confused me a bit, that I’m still researching, was the Aesop’s Fables Classic Edition where Aesop is still considered the author. As I don’t know how the original tales were actually written, I have no comparison to the text, but I do wonder if Aesop is considered the writer, how true to his original work are these tales? I also greatly enjoyed the Chinese Fables where the author, Shiho S. Nunes, translated and expounded on 19  out of Wolfram Eberhard’s abstracted catalog of 500 Chinese Fables and Parables. As Nunes (2021) details, they show both the wisdom and foolishness of ordinary folk.  

The Ant and the Grasshopper by Luli Gray

The Rabbit and the Turtle by Eric Carle

The Tortoise and the Hare by Janet Stevens

Aesop’s Fables Hardcover: The Classic Edition by Aesop

Ackamarackus: Julius Lester’s Sumptuously Silly Fantastically Funny Fables 

                  by Julius Lester

Chinese Fables: The Dragon Slayer and Other Timeless Tales of Wisdom  

by Shiho S. Nunes

Fairy Tales

The fairytales were also greatly entertaining. Fairytales have magic and adventure and oftentimes creatures you wouldn’t see in everyday life. I enjoyed reading two country’s versions of "Cinderella" and a book that feels like a different version of Disney’s "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" which I learned was an adaptation of "The Magic Bed-knob" by Mary Norton. It’s always amazing how tales are revamped and reimagined for a new generation to enjoy.

The Flying Bed by Nancy Willard

The Gingerbread Twins by Renee Hayes

Fair, Brown & Trembling: An Irish Cinderella Story by Jude Daly

Cinderella of the Nile by Beverley Naidoo

Little Red and the Hungry Lion by Alex Smith

Looking forward to seeing what we can get into next.

References

 

Canby, V. (1971, November 12). Angela Lansbury in ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks’. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1971/11/12/archives/angela-lansbury-in-bedknobs-and-broomsticks.html

 

Curry, P. & Curry, J. (2019). Parker looks up: An extraordinary moment. Aladdin.

 

Greene, E. & Del Negro, J.M. (2010). Storytelling Art and Technique. (4^th Ed.). Libraries Unlimited.

 

Kraus, R. (1994). Fables Aesop never wrote. Viking.

 

Nunes, S. S. (2021). Chinese fables: The ‘Dragon Slayer’ and other timeless tales of wisdom. Tuttle Publishing.  

 

Richardson, J. & Parnell, P. (2005). And Tango makes three. Sion & Schuster Books For Young Readers.

 

Smith, A. T. (2015). Little Red and the very hungry lion. Scholastic Press.

 

University of Massachusetts at Amherst. (n.d.) Aesop’s fables. https://www.umass.edu/aesop/history.php#:~:text=Not%20every%20fable%2C%20however%2C%20that,t%20possibly%20be%20his%20own.

 

 

Image Credits

 

All images were obtained via Amazon.com unless credited separately.