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Re: Where have all the folktales gone
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From: Lynn Rutan <lynnrutan_at_charter.net>
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:57:56 -0400
I have been musing on this interesting subject. I was a middle school librarian for many years and still work with a Gr. 6-12 bookclub and fairy tale/folklore twists are very popular with the teens here. In the last few years there have been some really outstanding YA books that the girls (and I) have adored reading. Juliet Marillier, Jessica Day George, Edith Pattou, Diane Zahler and Malinda Lo are just a few authors that spring quickly to mind and I know there are many more. It is a long-standing interest with teens too. I a had fairy tale twist bibliography available for the students because they asked for it so often.
The corollary to that tale however is the number of our students who didn't know the original tale! It is hard to appreciate a twist on a story if you don't know the story. A good example of this is the wonderful book Shadow Spinner by Susan Fletcher which is a version of the Scherazhade story and the 1001 Nights. My colleague created a wonderful booktalk for that (which I used at my school too) but we discovered that we had to FIRST tell the story of Scherazhade before we could booktalk Shadow Spinner. So many of our students had never heard of the 1001 Nights that the booktalk - and the new story - had to be explained first. There are a significant number of students who don't have the cultural background to understand the revisions and as much as they still seem to enjoy them, they miss a lot of the fun. I don't know how many times at our bookclub that we've had to gently explain points they've been perplexed by.
A second corollary is that it is very hard to find the original stories - especially for the youngest readers. I do after school child care for my first grade grandsons. They love books and have been exposed - probably more than they want ;-)- to lots and lots of them. There are some fabulous fun picture books that use the classical stories and nursery rhymes as a starting point and I wanted to find some good basic versions to read to them before heading to the spin-offs like Wiesner's The Three Pigs. I have struggled a bit to find something contemporary and have ended up going way back to some very old collections and telling them stories from memory.
Having had to weed an aging collection and reluctantly discard many fairy tale and folklore collections that were literally falling apart, I would say that I think there is a real need for some new editions of the stories we all think kids know and are shocked to find that they don't. I've looked especially for American tall tales and collections of fairy tales for our youngest readers. I think newly illustrated collections of these stories - so inherently part of our literacy culture - would find an enthusiastic audience.
Lynn Rutan Librarian Bookends: BooklistOnline Youth Blog Holland, MI lynnrutan_at_charter.net
Received on Tue 16 Mar 2010 07:57:56 PM CDT
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:57:56 -0400
I have been musing on this interesting subject. I was a middle school librarian for many years and still work with a Gr. 6-12 bookclub and fairy tale/folklore twists are very popular with the teens here. In the last few years there have been some really outstanding YA books that the girls (and I) have adored reading. Juliet Marillier, Jessica Day George, Edith Pattou, Diane Zahler and Malinda Lo are just a few authors that spring quickly to mind and I know there are many more. It is a long-standing interest with teens too. I a had fairy tale twist bibliography available for the students because they asked for it so often.
The corollary to that tale however is the number of our students who didn't know the original tale! It is hard to appreciate a twist on a story if you don't know the story. A good example of this is the wonderful book Shadow Spinner by Susan Fletcher which is a version of the Scherazhade story and the 1001 Nights. My colleague created a wonderful booktalk for that (which I used at my school too) but we discovered that we had to FIRST tell the story of Scherazhade before we could booktalk Shadow Spinner. So many of our students had never heard of the 1001 Nights that the booktalk - and the new story - had to be explained first. There are a significant number of students who don't have the cultural background to understand the revisions and as much as they still seem to enjoy them, they miss a lot of the fun. I don't know how many times at our bookclub that we've had to gently explain points they've been perplexed by.
A second corollary is that it is very hard to find the original stories - especially for the youngest readers. I do after school child care for my first grade grandsons. They love books and have been exposed - probably more than they want ;-)- to lots and lots of them. There are some fabulous fun picture books that use the classical stories and nursery rhymes as a starting point and I wanted to find some good basic versions to read to them before heading to the spin-offs like Wiesner's The Three Pigs. I have struggled a bit to find something contemporary and have ended up going way back to some very old collections and telling them stories from memory.
Having had to weed an aging collection and reluctantly discard many fairy tale and folklore collections that were literally falling apart, I would say that I think there is a real need for some new editions of the stories we all think kids know and are shocked to find that they don't. I've looked especially for American tall tales and collections of fairy tales for our youngest readers. I think newly illustrated collections of these stories - so inherently part of our literacy culture - would find an enthusiastic audience.
Lynn Rutan Librarian Bookends: BooklistOnline Youth Blog Holland, MI lynnrutan_at_charter.net
Received on Tue 16 Mar 2010 07:57:56 PM CDT
