15th March Favourite Folktales

As it is Folktale and Fable Week and I wrote about fables yesterday, I thought I'd share a few favourite folktales today. What is a folktale? A definition I have borrowed

Books in the folktale genre contain stories that have been passed down from generation to generation, often by oral telling. The folktale genre includes, but isn’t limited to: myths, tall tales, legends, fables, and fairy tales.

The stories have often been passed down from one generation to the other until no one remembers who first made up the tale. They tend to focus on broad themes and there may be multiple versions of the tale.

There's so many to choose from, and I have not included any fables, fairytales or myths.  The following are culture-based and are ones that I love to share with classes. Quite a lot has been written for teachers about being careful not to read a folktale to students and let them believe that it is indicative of the culture today. For this reason many teachers will not share Tikki Tikki Tembo. I think it is better to share good stories and talk about there place in time and culture.

Here's ten I love!

• Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears by Verna Aardema and Leo and Diane Dillon (African)

• Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters by John Steptoe (African)

• The Seven Chinese Brothers by Margaret Mahy and Jean and Mou-Sien Tseng (Chinese)

•Two of Everything by Lily Toy Hong (Chinese)

• Why Ducks Stand on One Leg by  Sherry Garland and Jean and Mou-Sien Tseng  (Vietnamese)

• The Old Woman and the Red Pumpkin by Betsy Bang and Rachel Merriman or No Dinner! by Jessica Souhami (Indian)

• The Talking Eggs by Roberts D. San Souci and Jerry Pinkney (Creole)

• The Princess Mouse by Aaron Shepherd and Leonid Gore (Finnish)

• Anansi and the Spider by Gerald McDermott (African)

• The Green Frogs by Yumi Heo (Korean)

6th August Picnic Day

It is Picnic Day in the Northern territory of Australia on the first Monday of August. But it could be picnic day at school any day you care to organise one. Start with Freda Plans a Picnic by Stuart J. Murphy and have the children look at how to organise a picnic. Make lists, allocate jobs and collect what is needed. Then read! Collect together all your old favourite picnic books and then include more recent ones such as the fabulous Florentine and Pig Have a Very Lovely Picnic by Eva Katzler & Jess Mikhail

I found these in my library:

• The Bears' Picnic by Stan and Jan Berenstain

• The Lighthouse Keeper's Picnic by Ronda and David Armitage

• Piglet's Picnic by Jessica Souhami

• We're Going on a Picnic! by Pat Hutchins

• The Bear's Water Picnic by John Yeoman & Quentin Blake

• Ants at the Picnic by Michael Dahl

• Polly's Picnic by Richard Hamilton & Sophy Williams

• Lily's Picnic by Paul Rogers

• Having a Picnic by Sarah Garland