Tell Me a Story!

Happy World Folk Tales & Fables Week! What a great week to revisit some of your favorite stories from when you were a kid. Try introducing them to children you know, as well as discovering some new stories on your own.

When I was little, I was fascinated with stories from around the world explaining how things came to be. I also loved tricky characters like the spider Anansi from Africa, and Brer Rabbit from the South.

These short fables are effective because they get their points across quickly and cleverly. It's great that they use mostly animal characters, too. Kids today can learn the same moral lessons as kids years ago did, with the same stories.

Cool, right? Check out some kids' books below, available in the Lackawanna County Library System:

• Goha: The Wise Fool by Denys Johnson-Davies (a story from the Middle East)
• My Grandmother's Stories: A Collection of Jewish Folk Tales by Adele Geras
• The Welsh Fairy Book by W. Jenkyn Thomas
• The Barefoot Book of Giants, Ghosts and Goblins: Traditional Tales From Around the World by John Matthews
• African American Folktales: Stories from Black Tradition in the New World by Roger D. Abrahams
• Favorite Irish Folk Tales by Seumas MacManus
• Mysterious Tales of Japan by Rafe Martin
• The Brothers Grimm: Popular Folk Tales by Jacob Grimm
• Folk Tales and Fables of Europe by Robert R. Ingpen

Laura
On behalf of the ACL