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Favorite Folktales from Around the World

10 best books like Favorite Folktales from Around the World (Jane Yolen): African Folktales, Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies, The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales, A Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend and Folklore, Latin American Folktales, Folktales from India, French Folktales, Norwegian Folktales, Arab Folktales, Irish Folk Tales

African Folktales
AuthorRoger D. Abrahams
Just like the others, I really enjoyed the tales, but not the commentary, which seemed excessive, superficial and a justification for the white scientist to have his name on the cover. Also, the grouping was weird (I would prefer by tribe), and the pictures of art objects seemed to be attached to fairy...
Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies
AuthorMoss Roberts
Quite a treasury. I liked the numerous short fables even better than the stories. And the introduction, that gives just a bit of historical context, esp. re the rivalry between the Confucians and the Taoists, is helpful.

My favorite is one of the very shortest:

"The Missing Axe

"A...
The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales
AuthorVirginia Hamilton
ISBN0375804714
The young woman lifted one foot in the air. Then the other. She flew clumsily at first, with the child now held tightly in her arms. Then she felt the magic, the African mystery. Say she rose just as free as a bird. As light as a feather.

This cherished image of escape from slavery is one of the most...
A Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend and Folklore
AuthorW.B. Yeats
William Butler Yeats (pronounced /ˈjeɪts/) was an Irish poet and dramatist, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years Yeats served as an Irish Senator for two terms. He was a driving force behind the...
Latin American Folktales
AuthorJohn Bierhorst
The wisdom and artistry of Latin America's storytellers preserve one of the world's richest folktale traditions—combining the lore of medieval Europe, the ancient Near East, and pre-Columbian America. Among the essential characters are the quiet man's wife who knew the Devil's secrets, the...
Folktales from India
AuthorA.K. Ramanujan
An enchanting collection of 110 tales, translated from twenty-two different languages, that are by turns harrowing and comic, sardonic and allegorical, mysterious and romantic. Gods disguised as beggars and beasts, animals enacting Machiavellian intrigues, sagacious jesters and magical storytellers,...
French Folktales
AuthorHenri Pourrat
ISBN0679748334
Selected from Henri Pourrat's classic Le tresor des contes, one of the finest folktale collections in the world, these one-hundred-odd legends, fairy tales, devotional pieces, jokes, and animal stories from the rural provinces of France comprise a magical volume. Fairies, changelings, giants,...
Norwegian Folktales
AuthorPeter Christen Asbjørnsen
Long a treasure in Norway, the folktales collected by Peter Christen Asbjornsen and Jorgen Moe have been acclaimed for their richness of humor, fullness of life, and depth of understanding since they first appeared in translation more than a hundred years ago. The Norwegian folktales, said Jacob...
Arab Folktales
AuthorInea Bushnaq
ISBN0394751795
While containing a broad sampling of folktales from the Arab people, there are a few problems that consistently bothered me about this book. The author, in her commentary, claims that "the true Arab is the desert nomad," an idea which folklorist Dwight Reynolds has said is culturally inaccurate and...
Irish Folk Tales
AuthorHenry Glassie
Robust and funny, sorrowful and heroic, this collection of 125 lively tales tells the story of Ireland. Spanning the centuries from the first wars of the ancient Irish kings through the Celtic Renaissance of Yeats to our own time, they are set in cities, villages, fields and forestsfrom the wild Gaelic...
Japanese Tales
AuthorRoyall Tyler
Here are two hundred and twenty dazzling tales from medieval Japan, tales that welcome us into a fabulous, faraway world populated by saints and scoundrels, ghosts and magical healers, and a vast assortment of deities and demons. Stories of miracles, visions of hell, jokes, fables, and legends, these...
The Victorian Fairy Tale Book
AuthorMichael Patrick Hearn
From Robert Browning’s Pied Piper of Hamelin and William Makepeace Thackeray’s Rose and the Ring to Kenneth Grahame’s Reluctant Dragon and J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, here are seventeen classic stories and poems from the golden age of the English fairy tale. Some of them...
Swedish Folktales and Legends
AuthorLone Thygesen Blecher
ISBN0816645752
Swedish Folktales and Legends is a diverse and representative collection of stories from Sweden's centuries-old folklore tradition. Ranging from the ribald to the romantic, from the rustic to the mythical, these are lively translations of 150 tales drawn from unique sources including the Swedish...
The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm
AuthorJack D. Zipes
In a new text from W. W. Norton and Company (publisher of many of your textbooks) comes the latest compendium of the founding yet moving stories of Europe that are fairy tales. The Great Fairy Tale Tradition, selected and edited by Jack Zipes, has just about every fairy tale you could want. The book has...
Northern Tales: Stories from the Native Peoples of the Arctic and Sub-Arctic Regions
AuthorHoward Norman
ISBN0375702679
From Greenland to Siberia, from Alaska to Japan, from Canada to North Pole, here are more than one hundred folktales from more than thirty tribal peoples who make their home in the arctic and subarctic regions.By turns tragic and comic, fantastic and earthy, uncanny and profound, these tales transport...
Best-Loved Folktales of the World
AuthorJoanna Cole
ISBN0385189494
A great compendium of stories with the common hidden theme which you can find if you read them with your heart.

Some favorites:

Maid Lena: This story reveals that the source of our lack of energy and courage is the result of something being “dead at our center,” and the necessity...
Scandinavian Folk & Fairy Tales: Tales From Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland & Iceland
AuthorAnonymous
ISBN0517436205
I hate to say that these were really disappointing :(
(There was literally only ONE story about vikings in this whole book!)
Also worth noting, is that these tales are heavily influenced by early christian views of the Scandinavian countries, rather than the pantheon of norse gods and goddesses....
Yiddish Folktales
AuthorBeatrice Silverman Weinreich
Filled with princesses and witches, dybbuks and wonder-working rebbes, the two hundred marvelous tales that make up this delightful compendium were gathered during the 1920s and 1930s by ethnographers in the small towns and villages of Eastern Europe. Collected from people of all walks of life,...
The Yellow Fairy Book
AuthorAndrew Lang
ISBN0486216748
I grew up with a copy of Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book. I loved that hardback edition of fairy tales. I read it and reread it and reread it. At that time, I had no idea that there were a whole set of color fairy tales to be had. But I had such fond memories of it that when I spied a modern edition of The Yellow Fairy...
British Folk Tales and Legends: A Sampler
AuthorKatharine M. Briggs
ISBN0415286026
In 1970 Katharine Briggs published in four volumes the vast and authoritative Dictionary of British Folktales and Legends to wide acclaim. This sampler comprises the very best of those tales and legends. Gathered within, readers will find an extravagance of beautiful princesses and stout stable...
Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales from Around the World
AuthorKathleen Ragan
ISBN0393320464
Dismayed by the predominance of male protagonists in her daughters' books, Kathleen Ragan set out to collect the stories of our forgotten heroines. Gathered from around the world, from regions as diverse as sub-Saharan Africa and Western Europe, from North and South American Indian cultures and...
The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales
AuthorMaria Tatar
ISBN0393051633
I usually love the Norton Annotated books, but this one was a disappointment. The first let-down was that Tatar also annotated The Annotated Brothers Grimm and The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen, and many of the same fairy tales -- with the same or nearly the same annotations -- are included here....
The Virago Book of Fairy Tales
AuthorAngela Carter
ISBN1853814407
Once upon a time fairy tales weren't meant just for children, and neither is The Virago Book of Fairy Tales. This stunning collection contains lyrical tales, bloody tales, hilariously funny and ripely bawdy stories from countries around the world. And no drippy princesses or soppy fairies. Instead...
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