Story Collections
Jenifer Fratzke, Alaska’s Women Pilots: Contemporary Portraits. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-87421-583-8. Working from her own history of 18 years of flying in Alaska, Jenifer Fratzke has filled in major gaps by writing women into the record of aviation in Alaska. Full of engaging stories, the book surveys the history of Alaskan flight from a feminist perspective and presents lively interviews with seven women aviators: a commercial pilot, flight instructor, bush pilot and big game guide, private pilot, helicopter pilot, aerobatic pilot, and an aviation safety instructor. A final glossary helps the uninitiated follow the women’s vivid accounts of their lives and careers.
Carl Lindahl, ed., American Folktales from the collections of the Library of Congress. Two-volume set. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe Inc., 2004. ISBN 0-7656-8062-9. This is a monumental achievement: 215 tales transcribed (and generously interpreted and annotated) from the recorded collections of the Archive of Folk Culture in the Library of Congress, representing immense historical depth and cultural range. Every decision Lindahl has made increases the value of this collection not only for storytellers, but also for folktale scholars and general readers. He foregrounds individual and family repertoires and styles by clustering stories by the same narrator (and family and region), and his notes and introductions to tales and tellers pay attention not only to comparative matters, but also to biography, style, and the interactions of particular collectors and informants. The engaging general introduction discusses the genres of folk narrative in the United States and presents the major principles of folktale scholarship at the beginning of the twenty-first century. No book note can do justice to the range and richness of this work. It should be in the collection of every library – and of most American storytellers.
Margaret Read MacDonald, ed. Three Minute Tales: Stories from around the World to Tell or Read When Time Is Short. Little Rock: August House Publishers, 2004. ISBN 0-87483-729-4. How many niches can a little book fill? This one may set a record, offering lively stories suitable for beginning tellers, for teachers, museum docents, leaders of history or nature walks, public speakers, performance coaches, and – most important of all – for any teller who needs a little story to fill out the odd moment in a program or intervie w. Chapters present humorous tales, participation tales, riddle tales, scary tales, “very tiny tales,” a large collection of fascinating “Stories to think about,” and more, with thorough notes on types, motifs and sources, a useful set of hints for beginning tellers, and a bibliography leading on to many more short tales.
The Robber with a Witch’s Head: More Stories from the Great Treasury of Sicilian Folk and Fairy Tales Collected by Laura Gonzenbach. Translated with an introduction by Jack Zipes. New York and London: Routledge, 2004. ISBN 0-415-97069-5. This marvelous group of tales completes the English publication of the 19th-century Gonzenbach collection of Sicilian stories, the first half of which was published in 2003 under the title Beautiful Angiola. These are women’s stories, with women’s slant on the European tale tradition – a magnificent resource for tellers seeking stories with strong female protagonists, but also for all tellers who love vivid wonder-tales.
Tim Tingle and Doc Moore, Texas Ghost Stories: Fifty Favorites for the Telling. Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-89672-519-7. Everyone who tells (or wants to tell) ghost stories should own and read this book. If you’re from Texas, so much the better, since the authors have presented three groups of tales: tales the pioneers (Anglo, Hispanic, Irish, African-American, Cajun) brought to Texas, tales about the pioneers themselves and Texas history, and urban legends and contemporary tales. But even if you’re not Texan, these artfully-retold and genially-introduced tales are fine to tell. The authors’ appendix on “Learning Ghost Stories: The Why and How” is not only a fine guide for beginning tellers, but also a profoundly thoughtful discussion of ghost stories that all readers will appreciate. In all, this book is like an excellent concert: rich in stories, but rich, too, in learning and in friendly conversation.
Jim Flanagan, Stories Heard Around the Lunchroom. Bloomington, IN: Firstbooks, 2004. ISBN 1-4140-4533-6. Funny stories about the lives and experiences of children, written in child-like syntax and language.
Bruce Kiskaddon, Shorty’s Yarns: Western Stories and Poems of Bruce Kiskaddon. Edited and with an introduction by Bill Siems. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-87421-580-3. Renowned cowboy poet Bruce Kiskaddon (1878-1950) was also a fine story-writer, as Bill Siems’ painstaking collection of his Western Livestock Journal stories (published between 1932 and 1939) demonstrates. These are marvelous dialect yarns set in Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, energized by vivid, unusual characters. Siems’ introduction draws on interviews and presents new information about Kiskaddon.
Amatneek, Bill. Acoustic Stories. Sebastopol, CA: Vineyards Press, 2003. ISBN 1-928578-11-X. These personal stories drawn from Amatneek’s folk music career, including encounters with many well-known acoustic musicians, give us insight into this world. Well-illustrated.
Bailey, Josie S. From Dawn to Dusk. Marietta, GA: F.R.O.G. the ROCK Publications, 2002. ISBN 0-9727142-1-9. Two monologues, written in Southern Black dialect, by Celia Elliott, a former slave, and her daughter Rosa, with glossary for readers puzzled by dialect spellings.
Beautiful Angiola: The Great Treasure of Sicilian Folk and Fairy Tales Collected by Laura Gonzenbach. Translated with an introduction by Jack Zipes. New York & London: Routledge, 2004. ISBN 0-415-96808-9. A great treasure indeed! Here – in English for the first time – are 50 folktales collected in the mid-19th century by the gifted Laura Gonzenbach, daughter of a Swiss-German merchant in Messina, and first published by her (in High German translation) in 1870. Fluent in four languages including Sicilian, Gonzenbach wrote down these tales directly from peasant and lower middle-class women, and they reflect those women’s class and gender perspectives. Far closer to oral tradition than the Grimms’ bowdlerized and elevated tales, Gonzenbach’s collection gives powerful new insights into European folktale traditions.
ben Izzy, Joel. The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness: A True Story. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 2003. ISBN 1-56512-290-9. This extraordinary book presents Joel ben Izzy’s true personal story, articulated and deepened in meaning by brief, powerful traditional tales. Some of the tales are stationed as interludes in the narrative; many others are told by Lenny, ben Izzy’s enigmatic mentor. As the story of ben Izzy’s sorrows and his gradual coming to wisdom unfolds, my own understanding expanded. Storytellers will find in The Beggar King an inspiring model of the use of traditional tales to put life stories in perspective.
Brown, Alan. Haunted Places in the American South. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002. ISBN 1-57806-477-5. Alan Brown’s long fascination with Southern legends gives rise to this collection of 55 eerie stories, most of them never before published – four or five from each of twelve southern states. The book is well-researched and has a useful bibliography; each place is carefully identified and located, often with telephone numbers for further information.
Bruchac, Joseph. Our Stories Remember; American Indian History, Culture, and Values through Storytelling. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 2003. ISBN 1-55591-129-3. Today’s post-colonial world, in which diverse American Indian cultures have been connected in powwows, schools, and political battles, makes possible this book’s profound demonstration of the common values and interests of Native Americans. Joseph Bruchac’s method is storytelling. Through the traditional stories of peoples across Central and North America (a useful map opens the book) and personal stories gleaned from his own experiences and those of his friends from many tribes, Bruchac illustrates such Indian concepts as origins, spiritual truths, tricksters, family relationships, and the living nature of all creation. Recommended readings close each chapter, and the book ends with notes to story sources. A very helpful, gracefully written little book.
Bunce, Meliss. Happily Ever After: Folktales that Illuminate Marriage and Commitment. Little Rock: August House, 2003. ISBN 0-87483-674-3. Marriage does appear in folktales. Usually there’s an early death and a disastrous stepmother, or a quest that leads to that final sentence: They married and lived happily.... But there’s not much about marriage in those tales! Here’s a marvelous collection that fills in the picture, with traditional multicultural stories of successful marriages, cautionary tales, and stories to guide and comfort those in heterosexual relationships.
Culmer, Kathy Hood, ed. Yes, Jesus Loves Me: 31 Love Stories—A Month of Sunday Stories. Kingwood, TX: Good Word Productions, 2003. ISBN 0-9715353-0-2. Christian women’s stories of life-transforming experiences, presented as evidence of God’s love.
DuFour, Darlene. Louisiana Stories for the Young and the Young at Heart. Pineville, LA: D D Management Corporation, 2000. ISBN 0-935545-35-2. Eight original animal stories for children, presented with notes, activities, and discussion questions. The collection is aimed at teaching character development, respect for Louisiana’s natural environment, and respect for Cajun culture and traditions.
Dundas, Marjorie. Riddling Tales from around the World. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002. ISBN 1-57806-373-6. Feast on the world’s ingenuity in these 79 tales. Clever peasant girls, intriguing adventures, serendipity that saves heroes from certain death, dilemmas with wise solutions, riddles from the Devil, sagacious judges – they are all here, concentrated as never before in a single volume. Sources, motifs, and tale-types of each story are carefully provided, along with a useful index of topics.
Happiness Is a Decision of the Heart. Sevierville, TN: Insight Publishing Co., 2004. ISBN 1-885640-16-1. Featuring Jackson Gillman, this upbeat book contains essays on happiness, contentment, and joy by twelve different authors. Jackson’s piece, “It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This,” weaves together reflection, song, and stories about the rewards of being a parent, along with a detailed and witty treatise on “How to bring a sleeping child from the car into bed without incident.”
Haven, Kendall. Women at the Edge of Discovery: 40 True Science Adventures. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2003. ISBN 1-59158-015-3. What a wonderful gift this is to storytellers who seek either science stories or stories about heroic and pioneering women! Many disciplines are here, from chemistry and physics to astronomy, biology, and medicine, and experiences range from the laboratory and observatory to the oceans and jungles. Marine biologist Judith Bernard lures great white sharks close for study; paleontologist Mary Leakey finds a human footprint 3.5 million years old, from the time when humanoids first walked erect; biological engineer Shannon Lucid performs scientific experiments on weightlessness, living with two Russian cosmonauts for six months in the space station MIR. All stories are followed by interesting suggestions for further topics to explore, and by helpful bibliography.
Indonesian Folktales, retold by Murti Bananta, ed. by Margaret Read MacDonald. World Folklore Series. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2003. ISBN 1-56308-909-2. This new addition to the World Folktales series continues its tradition of careful contextualizing. Introductory chapters on the history and culture of the Indonesian archipelago, buttressed by photos, bibliography, glossary, and notes, give a firm foundation for the 29 stories – 13 from oral sources, 16 from written – that Murti Bananta has translated here, clustered into six thematic groups: Jealous and Envious Brothers and Sisters, Independent Princesses, Ungrateful Children, Rice Stories, How Things Came To Be, and Legends about Places.
Joy, Flora. Treasures from Europe: Stories and Classroom Activities. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2003. ISBN 1-56308-963-7. A splendid resource for educators and storytellers, this collection contains one story each from Denmark, Ireland, Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Iceland, Macedonia, Jewish Russia, and Scotland. Each story comes in the midst of a section contributed by a storyteller from its culture, presenting background and follow-up material, much of it on reproducible pages, with appealing instructions about ways to make the cultural learning enjoyable. The collection offers a wide choice of types of stories and activities, and respectful, understandable, but not simplistic cultural and historical information.
Kibler, James Everett. Child to the Waters. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Co., 2003. ISBN 1-58980-095-8. A collection of stories from the Piedmont area of the South, representing various cultures in the region – African-American, Irish, German, English. The stories are literary adaptations of folk traditions, some of which attempt to represent dialects.
Livo, Norma J. Bringing Out Their Best: Values Education and Character Development Through Traditional Tales. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2003. ISBN 1-56308-934-3. 55 international folktales are presented in 12 clusters focused on character and values (examples: Fairness, Love, Trustworthiness, Self-discipline, Responsibility, Dealing with Bullies). Aimed at teachers, parents, librarians, and others charged with the nurturing of young minds, the book offers not only Norma Livo’s own reflections, discussion questions, and activity suggestions at the end of each section, but also a brief, highly useful introduction to the roles and effectiveness of stories in education.
Marshall Islands Legends and Stories. Told by Tonke Aisea, Koju Alfred, et al. Collected and edited by Daniel A. Kelin II. Honolulu, Hawai’i: Bess Press, 2003. ISBN 1-57306-140-9. The tiny Marshall Islands (more than 1200 islets in the Pacific Ocean, near the Equator, but in total land area, some 70 square miles) have a little-documented narrative heritage that goes back millennia, full of wisdom and practical teaching, laced with the doings of the trickster Letao. Daniel Kelin spent ten years traveling to the Marshalls, going to atolls and islands to the homes of generous storytellers. The collection contains an excellent glossary and pronunciation guide.
McNamee, Gregory, ed. The Desert Reader: A Literary Companion. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, rpt. 2003. ISBN 0-8263-2984-5. Although this anthology includes only a few folktales (and some traditional poetry and mythological material), environmental storytellers will find it a rich source of information, language, and perspectives on the desert cultures of the world, from the Americas, to Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. The words of past and present literary writers, naturalists, explorers, and indigenous peoples combine into a valuable collection of perspectives on life in the world’s driest regions.
Montell, William Lynwood. Tales from Kentucky Lawyers. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003. ISBN 0-8131-2294-5. Here’s a sample: A state trooper, delighted to catch the young man doing 80 in a 60-mile-an-hour zone, said, “Son, I’ve been sitting here waiting for you a long time.” Young man looked him square in the eye: “Sir, I got here as quickly as I could.”
This collection of tales from some of the country’s best raconteurs covers not only courtroom situations, but also every kind of topic that might come under a lawyer’s eye, from homicide, theft, and moonshine to family matters, with marvelous accounts of blunders, sharp repartee, and comeuppances. Drawing on extensive interviewing, master folklorist Lynwood Montell has created a delightful celebration of lawyers, their profession, their weaknesses, and their wisdom.
Robinson, Sherry. Apache Voices: Their Stories of Survival as Told to Eve Ball. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2000. ISBN 0-8263-2163-1. In the 1940s and 1950s, historian Eve Ball interviewed Apache elders – including many women – and gathered unique stories of the experiences of Lipan, Chiricahua, Warm Springs, and Mescalero Apache during the U.S. Army campaigns of the previous century. Sherry Robinson has mined Ball’s papers to find new accounts and vivid stories that will be important to storytellers seeking the Apache side of this tragic conflict.
Simms, Laura. The Robe of Love: Secret Instructions for the Heart. New Paltz, NY: Codhill Press, 2002. ISBN 1-930337-05-1. Fourteen stories from various cultures, presenting unusual, subtle, and profound visions of love. The heart’s desire is more complicated than we realize.
Tingle, Tim. Walking the Choctaw Road. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press, 2003. ISBN 0-938317-74-1. Honoring the voices of many Choctaw elders, both from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and the Oklahoma Choctaw Nation, Tim Tingle presents stories that represent the history, spirit, and beliefs of his people. Arranged roughly chronologically, the stories show that truth, generosity, and respect are the qualities that have preserved these “people of miracles,” who have helped runaway slaves, survived the Trail of Tears and smallpox-infested blankets, endured Indian boarding schools, and maintained their faith, healing knowledge, and stories. This inspiring collection is truly a cultural bridge, complete with glossary and bibliography.
Vermont Folklife Center, Visit’n: Conversations with Vermonters. Volume 9: Vermont-style Altruism and Activism. Middlebury, VT: Vermont Folklife Center, 2003. Storytellers should be aware of Visit’n, the Vermont Folklife Center’s annual publication of oral histories from its collection. These stories – in this issue, rich anecdotal treasures from the lives of healers, volunteer fire fighters, activist nuns, and various community volunteers – will inspire those who wish to tell their own stories or to collect and help to tell others’. For more information about the VFC, see www.vermontfolklifecenter.org.
Weigle, Marta and Peter White, The Lore of New Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8263-3157-2. Wonderful that this sumptuous collection of Southeastern lore is back in print, abridged (to 459 pages!) and in paperback. Juxtaposing insights from New Mexico’s three major cultural traditions – Native American, Hispanic, and Anglo – the book focuses on symbols and themes in history and on folklife descriptions organized around senses of place, significant persons, and ideas of ritual and ordinary time. The volume is replete with stories, anecdotes, and excellent illustrative photographs.
Wolkstein, Diane. Treasures of the Heart: Holiday Stories that Reveal the Soul of Judaism. New York: Schocken Books, 2003. ISBN 0-8052-4144-2. Beginning the calendar – in the old Biblical fashion – with Passover, Treasures of the Heart presents fully contextualized versions of the stories that shape the major Jewish holidays throughout the year. In this carefully-researched and gracefully written collection, Diane Wolkstein reflects the “new story” of Judaism, the maturing of a people’s relationship to God. Feminine and masculine are interwoven in the tales, which offer varying points of view and leave listeners free to develop their own spiritual understanding. This is a book that will not only introduce Judaism to newcomers, but will also deepen the understanding of those within the culture.