A welcome addition to the folklore bookshelf.
Traditional tales and myths from the different regions of Switzerland.
In this collection, originally published in German, not all the stories are stories in the traditional sense, involving conflict and resolution. Many are simple folk explanations of natural phenomena that typically involve some mythical being, such as the existence of “two gigantic perpendicular rocks linked together by a stone roof” in a forest of the Aargau region, which was once “the entrance to an underground cave. In this cave lived the goblins.” In another, a devil gets the credit for a rock that sits near a bridge over the River Reuss. In the different accounts, goblins, ghosts, devils, fairies, dwarfs, and other mythical beings interact with humans, usually to the detriment of one or the other. And all have a delightful folksy edge. There are 23 stories in all, representing most of the Swiss cantons, but more importantly, they cover the four language regions of Switzerland, thus capturing the diverse perspectives of the country. Nineteen different illustrators were tasked with illustrating the tales, and their aesthetic sensibilities and approaches are as varied as the stories themselves. Nevertheless, the book maintains a satisfying and attractive cohesiveness.
A welcome addition to the folklore bookshelf. (epilogue, artist bios) (Folklore. 5-9)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-3-314-10488-6
Page Count: 136
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
“Sticking to your goals may bring more success than being lazy with your talents.” (Fables. 5-9)
“My name is Aesop! Once I was a slave. Now I am a free man. I have refreshments to sell and stories to tell.”
This fresh approach to the classic collection makes a character of Aesop himself, talking to a fictional audience and directing questions to them, and is an effective context for the fables. In "The Crow and the Jar," the crow can’t get his head far enough into the jar to reach the water, so he drops in pebble after pebble until it rises high enough for him to drink. Aesop has the children who are gathered around his storytelling stall in the marketplace collect pebbles and drop them in a jar to demonstrate. Moral: “Brains are sometimes better than brute strength.” An introduction explains what little is known about Aesop, an ugly man with a bald head and bandy legs who was a slave, and defines the form. The textured illustrations appear as if painted on handmade paper, varying in size and placement from a full page to a double-spread banner. Not every page has artwork, leaving all-text pages off-puttingly dense. Greek motifs are used throughout, and the morals appear as letters chiseled in stone at the end of each tale. Fable collections are plentiful (Jerry Pinkney’s Aesop's Fables, 2000, and The McElderry Book of Aesop's Fables, by Michael Morpurgo, 2005, for instance), but the storytelling device here works well as an engaging read-aloud.
“Sticking to your goals may bring more success than being lazy with your talents.” (Fables. 5-9)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7459-6915-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Lion/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The poets invite and may well entice readers to write their own fairy-tale poems.
An intriguing idea becomes a thought-provoking collection of short poems from characters readers only thought they knew.
Yolen and Dotlich have taken 15 well-known fairy tales (“Cinderella,” “Snow White,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” etc.) and written two short poems in various formats spoken from the point of view of a character. The Princess and the Pea each get a voice, and so do the Frog and the Princess. Tiny Thumbelina gets two tiny poems, a cinquain and a haiku. The frontmatter lists who wrote what, and a very brief summary of each tale is listed at the end. While short, these notes include tale variants, which is very nice indeed. The beginning poem, “Once,” is by Yolen; and the closing, “Happily Ever After,” is by Dotlich. While every poem is accessible, some are richer and darker than others. “Beauty and the Beast: An Anniversary” (Yolen) visits the couple in their old age and is wistful and touching; “Snide: An Afterthought” (Dotlich) is as the title states: “Ever after, I refused to call him / Rumpelstiltskin; / to me, he is a nasty little man.” Mahurin’s surreal images are layered with color, now matte, now iridescent, with exaggerated perspectives and dreamlike, occasionally nightmarish, elongated or oversized figures.
The poets invite and may well entice readers to write their own fairy-tale poems. (Poetry/fairy tales. 5-9)Pub Date: March 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59078-867-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2013
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