Folklore

Folklore


When I think of folklore, my first thought is folktales.  The genre of folklore includes nursery rhymes, folktales and fables.  Our textbook listed several key factors in considering quality in folklore.  When selecting folklore, one should consider:

Does it….
echo spoken language, with rich, natural rhythms
reflect the cultural integrity of early retelling
preserve the straightforward structure of oral stories
explore significant universal themes

According to our textbook, the illustrations should:
serve as examples of artistic excellence
complement and extend the narrative
offer authentic cultural detail

By studying the genre of folklore, students will gain an appreciation of diverse cultures and traditions.  Students can compare historic world cultures with contemporary ones.  By reading myths and folktales, students increase knowledge of genre characteristics.  Students will also be able to identify unique characteristics of the genre: myth, folklore, and fairy tales.  My fourth graders always enjoy when we compare and contrast the fairy tale Cinderella.  Here are the books we use:

Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters by John Steptoe           
This Caldecott Medal-winning African tale evokes the Cinderella story, as well as the traditional theme of good triumphing over evil.

The Rough Face Girl by Rafe Martin
This moving adaptation of the classic children's story Cinderella tells how a disfigured Algonquin girl wins the heart of a mysterious being who lives by the lake near her village.

Yeh-Shen: A Cinderella Story retold by Ai-Ling Louie 
"Yeh-Shen," a Chinese version of the tale almost a thousand years older than the earliest known European version, contains many familiar details - a poor over-worked girl, a wicked stepmother and stepsister, a magical helper, a king in search of a wife, and a lost shoe. But while Cinderella is simply handed gifts from her fairy godmother, Yeh-Shen earns her wishes through kindness to a magic fish.

I will be adding to more versions to my collection this year.
The first is The Egyptian Cinderella by Shirley Climo
 A stunning combination of fluent prose and exquisitely wrought illustrations. Climo has woven this ancient tale, a mixture of fact and myth, with clarity and eloquence. The beauty of the language is set off to perfection by Heller's arresting full-color illustrations. The story of Rhodopis, a Greek slave girl in ancient Egypt, is an interesting variant of the traditional Cinderella legend.  --From the School Library Journal

The latest addition to my collection is Little Gold Star/Estrellita De Oro
This Cinderella Story has a Mexican twist. 

About the author (Information taken from: http://www.cincopuntos.com/pdf/Little%20Gold%20Star.pdf
Joe Hayes grew up in a small town in southern Arizona. His schoolmates
and friends, many of whom were Mexican-American, taught him how to
speak Spanish. As Joe got older, he began reading the work of folklorists
and anthropologists and gathering the old stories from the region that he
calls home—the Southwestern United States. When his own children were
young, Joe enjoyed telling them stories. In fact, he enjoyed storytelling so
much that he decided that this would be the way that he would earn a living.
He decided to use both Spanish and English when telling his stories to
children.  With these as his roots, Joe has become one of America’s premier
storytellers, traveling around the country to schools, universities and professional conferences to tell his stories. His bilingual Spanish-English tellings have earned him a distinctive place among America’s storytellers.