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Once There Was a Story: Tales from Around the World, Perfect for Sharing
From beloved author Jane Yolen and acclaimed illustrator Jane Dyer a collection of thirty stories from around the world, perfect for sharing and for bedtime.
This collection of well-known and not-so-well known stories, fairy tales, folk tales, and fables from Russia to Africa to Korea and beyond includes magic tales, homey tales, and animal tales.
As Jane Yolen says in her introduction, “These are stories that are short, full of remarkable characters, infinitely retellable, and fit for children between three and five years of age. I hope—as you read them with a child on your lap, or snuggled next to you in bed, or sitting with young friends at your feet, their eager faces falling under the story’s spell—I hope that you love the stories as well as they do.”
This collection of well-known and not-so-well known stories, fairy tales, folk tales, and fables from Russia to Africa to Korea and beyond includes magic tales, homey tales, and animal tales.
As Jane Yolen says in her introduction, “These are stories that are short, full of remarkable characters, infinitely retellable, and fit for children between three and five years of age. I hope—as you read them with a child on your lap, or snuggled next to you in bed, or sitting with young friends at your feet, their eager faces falling under the story’s spell—I hope that you love the stories as well as they do.”
160 pages, Hardcover
Published November 21, 2017
3 people are currently reading
126 people want to read
About the author
Jane Yolen
972 books3,238 followersJane Yolen is a novelist, poet, fantasist, journalist, songwriter, storyteller, folklorist, and children’s book author who has written more than three hundred books. Her accolades include the Caldecott Medal, two Nebula Awards, the World Fantasy Award, three Mythopoeic Awards, the Kerlan Award, two Christopher Awards, and six honorary doctorate degrees from colleges and universities in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Born and raised in New York City, the mother of three and the grandmother of six, Yolen lives in Massachusetts and St. Andrews, Scotland.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
May 30, 2022
We loved this collection! We read this one story at a time over many months. The kids each have their favorites they like to re-read. Finding the countries each story came from on a map was fun, too. Jane Dyer’s illustrations are lovely. I will definitely be reading more of Jane Yolen’s folktale collections. Don’t miss her afterword in this book, which gives a peek into how she puts these collections together — her attic library sounds like a dream!
January 13, 2020
Yolen retells 32 stories from different cultures, chosen specifically to read aloud to children ages 3-5. So, the retellings are kept fairly simple, with repetitious phrases in many of them. She included two original stories of her own told in folktale style. She also ends each story with a moral in the form of a couplet. I was familiar with most of the stories, but young children will not be familiar with most of them. Some of the stories are "The Gingerbread Man," "The Turnip," "The Little Red Hen," "The Old Woman and Her Pig," "Tops and Bottoms," "How Anansi Got All His Stories," and more. She includes a list of sources for the stories in the back of the book.
August 19, 2019
The book contains 32 short stories from around the world. Many of which will be familiar to people from other collections. Beautiful illustrations!
1. The Gingerbread Man - an American story about that mischievous little gingerbread man who meets his end by way of a clever fox.
2. The Turnip - a Russian story about a family pulling at a stubborn turnip. It includes the usually family members, a dog, cat, mouse and finally a flea is the last bit of strength they need to get the turnip to move
3. Lazy Jack - an English story. A young lazy boy is told by his mother he must get to work, but he keeps loosing his pay because he holds in the way that his mother last told him to hold it. (He lost a penny, so his mother tells him that tomorrow he should put his pay in his pocket, so next day when he gets a jar of milk he puts in his pocket, but it all spills out, so she says he should have balanced it on his head, next day he puts a packet of cream cheese on his head which melts all over his head and so on). Finally he gets a donkey and because the day before he had gotten a steak and tied a string to it and dragged it home ruining it, his mother had told him the next day he should carry his pay on his shoulders. So he carries the donkey on his shoulders. The sight of which causes a sick beautiful girl to laugh and speak for the first time in a long time and the rich man offers Jack anything he wishes. Jack immediately knows he wants the daughter as his wife but is not sure if he should put her in his pocket, or balance her on his head, or put her across his shoulders. The rich man says he doesn’t need to take her anywhere for they will leave there in the rich man’s house and ends by telling us that the house rang with laughter from then on.
4. Little Red Hen - The English tale which tells of the hardworking hen and the dog, pig and duck who offer her no assistance and thus get none of her bread in the end.
5. The Little Old Lady Who Lost Her Dumpling - a story from Japan about a little old lady giggles frequently. One day she looses her dumpling under house and finds a world underneath her floorboards. She meets several Jizo statutes who try to convince her to flee but she continues, when hiding behind one a great Oni approaches. She hides behind the statute. The statue can’t lie but does try to convience the Oni that perhaps it is mistaken in thinking the little woman is there, but then she laughs and gives herself away. He takes the little woman to his house and makes him cook for him using a paddle which can turn one grain of rice into a full meal. She finally decides to run away she gets in a boat and heads home but the river was wide and she was only halfway across when the Oni and his friends return. They begin drinking the river and the old woman is stuck in the mud. The Oni shake their fists at her and she shakes the paddle back. The sight of the old woman shaking the paddle causes them to laugh and the water comes out of them filling the river again and the woman gets safely to the other side where she becomes a rich woman thanks to the magic paddle.
6. The Bremen Town Musicians - One of my favorite tales of the animals who go off to become musicians and end up taking over a robber’s house instead.
7. Tops and Bottoms - Is an American story of African descent about a clever Rabbit who must work for a bear and offer him a large portion of his harvest each year. The Rabbit decides to trick him. So the first year - he asks the bear if he wants the top or bottom of the harvest. The Bear says he wants the tops. So the Rabbit sows carrots and gives Bear only the top leafy green parts. The next year the Bear says he wants the bottoms so the rabbit plants snap beans that grow high on a lattice and the bear only got the roots. Next year the Bear said he wanted both the tops and bottoms and so the Rabbit planted corn, giving the bear both the roots and stalks and taking what was in the middle (the corn). The bear was frustrated that he kept getting tricked but by this time the rabbit had made so much on his previous three year harvests that he no longer had to work for the the bear and could plant what he wanted to.
8. The Old Woman and her Pig - I felt like this story really should have been edited after all this collection includes two stories created by the author, so I don’t feel like they necessarily had to tell this story word for word the way the original story was probably told and this story contains an item that I found very disturbing. It is an English story that starts out innocently enough an old woman goes to the market and gets a pig and takes the pig home and tries to get him to jump over a stile which apparently is a set of steps over a wall meant to allow humans over but not livestock. The pig won’t jump over so she tells a dog to bite the dog, it won’t. She tells a stick to beat the dog, it won’t. She tells a fire to burn the stick, it won’t. She tells water to quench the fire, it won’t. It tells an Ox to drink the water it won’t. She tells a Butcher to kill the Ox, it doesn’t. She tells a piece of rope to hang the butcher, it won’t. It is these two (having a butcher kill an ox and a butcher hung by a rope) that I find rather disturbing in a modern fairy tale and feel like the could have been edited out of other items and still kept the overall feel of the story. But continuing, she tells a rat to gnaw the rope, it won’t. She tells a cat to kill the rat, it says it will if she gets milk from a cow. The cow says it will provide the milk if given a handful of hay. Hay in hand, the woman gets the process started, all of the characters start doing what she wanted them to do until the pig does end up jumping over the stile and she could go home. But again I feel like some of the violence of the old story could have been edited out and still kept the long progress of cause and effect that was there.
9. Stone Soup - a solider enters a town. All the towns folks say they have no food but when he announces that he will create soup from a stone they all come out and help him make a great soup.
10. Rosechild - this is the first of two stories created by the author. It fits in very well with the rest of the stories and the first time I read it I din’t even notice that it wasn’t a traditional fairy tale. An old woman desperately wants a child of her own and one day finds a baby asleep in the center of a rose. She takes the tiny baby home but is unsure how to care for it so she asks a local farmer, the squire and the priest for their advice, she follows all their advice but nothing helps. Then she hears the baby calling her she picks it up close to her head and loves it and with that love the baby finally grows until it takes care of her too.
11. The Lion and the Mouse - this is the Aesop tale about the mouse who is captured by a lion but says if the Lion will show mercy maybe the Mouse can help him someday. The Lion is skeptical but lets the mouse go and when the Lion is captured by a hunter’s net the Mouse is able to save the Lion.
12. The Mean Tiger and the Hare - this story is from Korea. The tiger threats to eat a rabbit but the Hare keeps getting the better of the Tiger. First he invites him home to have some food (the tiger figures that he can eat the Rabbits food and then the Rabbit) the Rabbit cooks rocks and says he is going out to make some Bean Sauce. The Tiger sneaks one of the rock cakes and badly burns his mouth on the cake. Next when the Tiger meets the Hare the Hare says he will drive birds into the Tiger’s mouth but instead starts a fire. Finally the Hare tells the Tiger how to fish by putting his tail in the river but it is very cold causing his tail to freeze in the ice. The Tiger was then caught by the villagers and put into a zoo.
13. The Grasshopper and the Ant - the age old Aesop story of the Grasshopper who wants to play his fiddle all day and not work while the Ant works away but once the winter comes and there is no food the Grasshopper regrets it and the Ants make him fiddle and sing before they will give him food.
14. The Ugly Duckling - has a lot of elements of the Hans Christian Andersen tale. The Ugly Duckling is treated badly by the other farm animals since he doesn’t look like his brothers and sisters. In the winter a farmer finds him and brings him home for his children to look after and it is thanks to their kindness that he survives the winter which I do believe is a departure from the original which I believe has an old woman and her cat look after him and they are not super nice to him (I believe, I will admit I don’t have the original story in front of me). But the next spring when he floats on the water he can see that he is now a swan by his reflection in the smooth water and is accepted by the other swans.
15. The Tortoise and the Hare - another classic Aesop tale, where the Hare is so sure of his ability he takes a nap which allows the slow plodding tortoise to beat him in the race.
16. The City Mouse and the Country Mouse - another Aesop tale with the City Mouse finding the Country Mouse’s life rather plain and boring but when the Country Mouse goes to visit his cousin in the city he quickly realizes he would rather have his plain life than one threatened by cats and dogs.
17. Plip Plop - while this is a Tibet story, it is basically Chicken Little but with different characters. There are bunnies who hear a Plip Plop sound and don’t know that it is simply ripe fruit falling into a lake, so they get scared and run away from the sound running into many animals great and small and convincing all them to run away from the scary Plip Plop. Until they finally get to the Lion. He asks what Plip Plop looks like. None of them can say so he has the scared little rabbits take him back to the lake where he sees more ripe fruit fall into the lake and make the Plip Plop sounds and he laughs and eats the fruit since he had promised that was what he would do to the horrible monster.
18. The Hen and The Big, Bad Fox from Ireland - a Hen lives in her little house and a fox keeps trying to get her for his mother but has no luck. One day she forgets to lock her door when she goes out. The fox gets into the house. The Hen flies up into the rafters, but the fox chases his tail in such quick circles it makes the hen dizzy watching and she falls from the rafter. He grabs her and puts her in his sack, but gets tired on the hill up to his house so he lays down and takes a nap. The hen who had scissors with her cuts open the bag puts a rock in it and runs home. Meanwhile the fox goes home goes to put the hen in the water his mother was boiling. The steaming water scalds them when the rock splashes out all the water and they never went after the hen again.
19. Noah’s Ark - the old testament story about the man who built the big ark to save all the animals. It does have an interesting list of animals including “zebras, emus, jackals, starlings, bears, lynx, favens, wolves, wapiti and doves” but other wise it sticks fairly closely to the biblical story.
20. The Sow, the Mare and the Cow - the second story created by the author for this book. The Sow, the Mare and Cow are tired of mans fences everywhere so they run away to the forest, but once there the scare night sounds cause them to create a barn one night and fences the next but still they hear the scary night sounds. The cow decides to go home but the Mare and the Sow knock down the fence and invite the scary night sounds in which turn out to be the froest folk come to make them feel welcome. And it ends with the idea that “if you can tell which one of the three was the happiest, you are a better judge of animals than I.” (My only note is if she was going to have three animals I kind of wish the story had ended with three outcomes rather than two it would be more satisfying.)
21. The Determined Tortoise and the World’s Wisdom - a tale from West Africa with Ijapa the Tortoise who decides he is the smartest creature in the world and gathers all the wisdom in a large gourd around his neck. He then goes to hide all this wisdom in a tall palm tree but despite his determined tries can not get to the top. The Snail watches him and suggests he moves the gourd to his back and once he does this he easily climbs the tree, but once there he realizes the Snail is much more intelligent than he is, so he drops the gourd and all the wisdom flies out again.
22. Silly Wishes - A Swedish fairy tale. An old woman is visited by a young lovely mysterious woman who asks for butter. The old woman gives her the butter and the young woman gives her three wishes in return. The woman wishes for a sausage for her first wish. The old man comes home and angry with such a useless first wish wishes that the sausage was at the end of her nose and then finally after thinking through some better third wishes finally wishes the sausage back in the pan so all they get for their three wishes is the sausage.
23. The Shoemaker and the Elves - a German tale well known of the poor shoemaker who leaves his cut patterns out only to find that each night they are made into fine shoes. This version does have a religious element to it in that the first night he prays over the pattern and so then this good fortune is seen as the answer to his prayers. With each purchase of shoes he can buy more leather and nicer food for him and his wife. They finally stay up to see what is happening and see the naked little elves and decide to make clothes and shoes for these helpers who take them and scamper off never to return but at this point they continued to have lots of customers.
24. Stonecutter - a Japanese story about the spirits in a mountain who wish to help the good stonecutter. So when the stonecutter goes to see a rich man and is jealous of his teak furniture and fine silken curtains, the spirits provide him with all these new riches. But the next day the former stonecutter wakes and sees a prince in carriage with six servants. He wishes to be a prince and is instantly turned into one. But next he realizes even all those servants can’t protect him from the scorching heat. So he wishes he was the sun. A moment later he is the sun, but he realizes a cloud can block the rays of the sun. So he asks to be a cloud. This is immediately granted but realizes a mountain can clock him as a cloud so he asks to be a mountain but then he sees the stonecutters taking rock from the mountain so he asks to be a stonecutter again. His wish is granted and finally he is happy at last.
25. Ali’s Wretched Sack - a Sufi story from Iran where a man is complaining about his horrible, terrible tattered sack. The mullah hears him steals his sack. Ali is even more sad, but then when the mullah leaves the sack for Ali, Ali is now so happy to have back what he was previously complaining about.
26. The Two Neighbors - a french story about two women. One is a very rich but miserly woman. The other is a
1. The Gingerbread Man - an American story about that mischievous little gingerbread man who meets his end by way of a clever fox.
2. The Turnip - a Russian story about a family pulling at a stubborn turnip. It includes the usually family members, a dog, cat, mouse and finally a flea is the last bit of strength they need to get the turnip to move
3. Lazy Jack - an English story. A young lazy boy is told by his mother he must get to work, but he keeps loosing his pay because he holds in the way that his mother last told him to hold it. (He lost a penny, so his mother tells him that tomorrow he should put his pay in his pocket, so next day when he gets a jar of milk he puts in his pocket, but it all spills out, so she says he should have balanced it on his head, next day he puts a packet of cream cheese on his head which melts all over his head and so on). Finally he gets a donkey and because the day before he had gotten a steak and tied a string to it and dragged it home ruining it, his mother had told him the next day he should carry his pay on his shoulders. So he carries the donkey on his shoulders. The sight of which causes a sick beautiful girl to laugh and speak for the first time in a long time and the rich man offers Jack anything he wishes. Jack immediately knows he wants the daughter as his wife but is not sure if he should put her in his pocket, or balance her on his head, or put her across his shoulders. The rich man says he doesn’t need to take her anywhere for they will leave there in the rich man’s house and ends by telling us that the house rang with laughter from then on.
4. Little Red Hen - The English tale which tells of the hardworking hen and the dog, pig and duck who offer her no assistance and thus get none of her bread in the end.
5. The Little Old Lady Who Lost Her Dumpling - a story from Japan about a little old lady giggles frequently. One day she looses her dumpling under house and finds a world underneath her floorboards. She meets several Jizo statutes who try to convince her to flee but she continues, when hiding behind one a great Oni approaches. She hides behind the statute. The statue can’t lie but does try to convience the Oni that perhaps it is mistaken in thinking the little woman is there, but then she laughs and gives herself away. He takes the little woman to his house and makes him cook for him using a paddle which can turn one grain of rice into a full meal. She finally decides to run away she gets in a boat and heads home but the river was wide and she was only halfway across when the Oni and his friends return. They begin drinking the river and the old woman is stuck in the mud. The Oni shake their fists at her and she shakes the paddle back. The sight of the old woman shaking the paddle causes them to laugh and the water comes out of them filling the river again and the woman gets safely to the other side where she becomes a rich woman thanks to the magic paddle.
6. The Bremen Town Musicians - One of my favorite tales of the animals who go off to become musicians and end up taking over a robber’s house instead.
7. Tops and Bottoms - Is an American story of African descent about a clever Rabbit who must work for a bear and offer him a large portion of his harvest each year. The Rabbit decides to trick him. So the first year - he asks the bear if he wants the top or bottom of the harvest. The Bear says he wants the tops. So the Rabbit sows carrots and gives Bear only the top leafy green parts. The next year the Bear says he wants the bottoms so the rabbit plants snap beans that grow high on a lattice and the bear only got the roots. Next year the Bear said he wanted both the tops and bottoms and so the Rabbit planted corn, giving the bear both the roots and stalks and taking what was in the middle (the corn). The bear was frustrated that he kept getting tricked but by this time the rabbit had made so much on his previous three year harvests that he no longer had to work for the the bear and could plant what he wanted to.
8. The Old Woman and her Pig - I felt like this story really should have been edited after all this collection includes two stories created by the author, so I don’t feel like they necessarily had to tell this story word for word the way the original story was probably told and this story contains an item that I found very disturbing. It is an English story that starts out innocently enough an old woman goes to the market and gets a pig and takes the pig home and tries to get him to jump over a stile which apparently is a set of steps over a wall meant to allow humans over but not livestock. The pig won’t jump over so she tells a dog to bite the dog, it won’t. She tells a stick to beat the dog, it won’t. She tells a fire to burn the stick, it won’t. She tells water to quench the fire, it won’t. It tells an Ox to drink the water it won’t. She tells a Butcher to kill the Ox, it doesn’t. She tells a piece of rope to hang the butcher, it won’t. It is these two (having a butcher kill an ox and a butcher hung by a rope) that I find rather disturbing in a modern fairy tale and feel like the could have been edited out of other items and still kept the overall feel of the story. But continuing, she tells a rat to gnaw the rope, it won’t. She tells a cat to kill the rat, it says it will if she gets milk from a cow. The cow says it will provide the milk if given a handful of hay. Hay in hand, the woman gets the process started, all of the characters start doing what she wanted them to do until the pig does end up jumping over the stile and she could go home. But again I feel like some of the violence of the old story could have been edited out and still kept the long progress of cause and effect that was there.
9. Stone Soup - a solider enters a town. All the towns folks say they have no food but when he announces that he will create soup from a stone they all come out and help him make a great soup.
10. Rosechild - this is the first of two stories created by the author. It fits in very well with the rest of the stories and the first time I read it I din’t even notice that it wasn’t a traditional fairy tale. An old woman desperately wants a child of her own and one day finds a baby asleep in the center of a rose. She takes the tiny baby home but is unsure how to care for it so she asks a local farmer, the squire and the priest for their advice, she follows all their advice but nothing helps. Then she hears the baby calling her she picks it up close to her head and loves it and with that love the baby finally grows until it takes care of her too.
11. The Lion and the Mouse - this is the Aesop tale about the mouse who is captured by a lion but says if the Lion will show mercy maybe the Mouse can help him someday. The Lion is skeptical but lets the mouse go and when the Lion is captured by a hunter’s net the Mouse is able to save the Lion.
12. The Mean Tiger and the Hare - this story is from Korea. The tiger threats to eat a rabbit but the Hare keeps getting the better of the Tiger. First he invites him home to have some food (the tiger figures that he can eat the Rabbits food and then the Rabbit) the Rabbit cooks rocks and says he is going out to make some Bean Sauce. The Tiger sneaks one of the rock cakes and badly burns his mouth on the cake. Next when the Tiger meets the Hare the Hare says he will drive birds into the Tiger’s mouth but instead starts a fire. Finally the Hare tells the Tiger how to fish by putting his tail in the river but it is very cold causing his tail to freeze in the ice. The Tiger was then caught by the villagers and put into a zoo.
13. The Grasshopper and the Ant - the age old Aesop story of the Grasshopper who wants to play his fiddle all day and not work while the Ant works away but once the winter comes and there is no food the Grasshopper regrets it and the Ants make him fiddle and sing before they will give him food.
14. The Ugly Duckling - has a lot of elements of the Hans Christian Andersen tale. The Ugly Duckling is treated badly by the other farm animals since he doesn’t look like his brothers and sisters. In the winter a farmer finds him and brings him home for his children to look after and it is thanks to their kindness that he survives the winter which I do believe is a departure from the original which I believe has an old woman and her cat look after him and they are not super nice to him (I believe, I will admit I don’t have the original story in front of me). But the next spring when he floats on the water he can see that he is now a swan by his reflection in the smooth water and is accepted by the other swans.
15. The Tortoise and the Hare - another classic Aesop tale, where the Hare is so sure of his ability he takes a nap which allows the slow plodding tortoise to beat him in the race.
16. The City Mouse and the Country Mouse - another Aesop tale with the City Mouse finding the Country Mouse’s life rather plain and boring but when the Country Mouse goes to visit his cousin in the city he quickly realizes he would rather have his plain life than one threatened by cats and dogs.
17. Plip Plop - while this is a Tibet story, it is basically Chicken Little but with different characters. There are bunnies who hear a Plip Plop sound and don’t know that it is simply ripe fruit falling into a lake, so they get scared and run away from the sound running into many animals great and small and convincing all them to run away from the scary Plip Plop. Until they finally get to the Lion. He asks what Plip Plop looks like. None of them can say so he has the scared little rabbits take him back to the lake where he sees more ripe fruit fall into the lake and make the Plip Plop sounds and he laughs and eats the fruit since he had promised that was what he would do to the horrible monster.
18. The Hen and The Big, Bad Fox from Ireland - a Hen lives in her little house and a fox keeps trying to get her for his mother but has no luck. One day she forgets to lock her door when she goes out. The fox gets into the house. The Hen flies up into the rafters, but the fox chases his tail in such quick circles it makes the hen dizzy watching and she falls from the rafter. He grabs her and puts her in his sack, but gets tired on the hill up to his house so he lays down and takes a nap. The hen who had scissors with her cuts open the bag puts a rock in it and runs home. Meanwhile the fox goes home goes to put the hen in the water his mother was boiling. The steaming water scalds them when the rock splashes out all the water and they never went after the hen again.
19. Noah’s Ark - the old testament story about the man who built the big ark to save all the animals. It does have an interesting list of animals including “zebras, emus, jackals, starlings, bears, lynx, favens, wolves, wapiti and doves” but other wise it sticks fairly closely to the biblical story.
20. The Sow, the Mare and the Cow - the second story created by the author for this book. The Sow, the Mare and Cow are tired of mans fences everywhere so they run away to the forest, but once there the scare night sounds cause them to create a barn one night and fences the next but still they hear the scary night sounds. The cow decides to go home but the Mare and the Sow knock down the fence and invite the scary night sounds in which turn out to be the froest folk come to make them feel welcome. And it ends with the idea that “if you can tell which one of the three was the happiest, you are a better judge of animals than I.” (My only note is if she was going to have three animals I kind of wish the story had ended with three outcomes rather than two it would be more satisfying.)
21. The Determined Tortoise and the World’s Wisdom - a tale from West Africa with Ijapa the Tortoise who decides he is the smartest creature in the world and gathers all the wisdom in a large gourd around his neck. He then goes to hide all this wisdom in a tall palm tree but despite his determined tries can not get to the top. The Snail watches him and suggests he moves the gourd to his back and once he does this he easily climbs the tree, but once there he realizes the Snail is much more intelligent than he is, so he drops the gourd and all the wisdom flies out again.
22. Silly Wishes - A Swedish fairy tale. An old woman is visited by a young lovely mysterious woman who asks for butter. The old woman gives her the butter and the young woman gives her three wishes in return. The woman wishes for a sausage for her first wish. The old man comes home and angry with such a useless first wish wishes that the sausage was at the end of her nose and then finally after thinking through some better third wishes finally wishes the sausage back in the pan so all they get for their three wishes is the sausage.
23. The Shoemaker and the Elves - a German tale well known of the poor shoemaker who leaves his cut patterns out only to find that each night they are made into fine shoes. This version does have a religious element to it in that the first night he prays over the pattern and so then this good fortune is seen as the answer to his prayers. With each purchase of shoes he can buy more leather and nicer food for him and his wife. They finally stay up to see what is happening and see the naked little elves and decide to make clothes and shoes for these helpers who take them and scamper off never to return but at this point they continued to have lots of customers.
24. Stonecutter - a Japanese story about the spirits in a mountain who wish to help the good stonecutter. So when the stonecutter goes to see a rich man and is jealous of his teak furniture and fine silken curtains, the spirits provide him with all these new riches. But the next day the former stonecutter wakes and sees a prince in carriage with six servants. He wishes to be a prince and is instantly turned into one. But next he realizes even all those servants can’t protect him from the scorching heat. So he wishes he was the sun. A moment later he is the sun, but he realizes a cloud can block the rays of the sun. So he asks to be a cloud. This is immediately granted but realizes a mountain can clock him as a cloud so he asks to be a mountain but then he sees the stonecutters taking rock from the mountain so he asks to be a stonecutter again. His wish is granted and finally he is happy at last.
25. Ali’s Wretched Sack - a Sufi story from Iran where a man is complaining about his horrible, terrible tattered sack. The mullah hears him steals his sack. Ali is even more sad, but then when the mullah leaves the sack for Ali, Ali is now so happy to have back what he was previously complaining about.
26. The Two Neighbors - a french story about two women. One is a very rich but miserly woman. The other is a
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 19, 2017
"Perfect for Sharing" it reads on the cover, and this collection of Yolen's favorites has little but detailed illustrations.
One of my favorite is "Tops and Bottoms." I wonder if some folks may have a problem with "Noah's Ark" being included as a "Beastly Tale," but it may introduce some youngsters to this story who have not heard of it before.
With all the wild variants around these days, it's nice to have a collection of simplified but rich traditional versions.
One of my favorite is "Tops and Bottoms." I wonder if some folks may have a problem with "Noah's Ark" being included as a "Beastly Tale," but it may introduce some youngsters to this story who have not heard of it before.
With all the wild variants around these days, it's nice to have a collection of simplified but rich traditional versions.
December 27, 2022
This was great! It’s a large volume of stories from all around the world. Some we were familiar with, many were new to us.
These stories reminded me of the “Circle Round” podcast which my kids also love.
I loved the format of this book because I could read a story or two everyday; it’s easy to pick up and put down.
These stories reminded me of the “Circle Round” podcast which my kids also love.
I loved the format of this book because I could read a story or two everyday; it’s easy to pick up and put down.
April 17, 2018
Outstanding set of thirty stories gathered from around the world including two original tales by Jane Yolen, meant for young readers and listeners. Jane after adds beautiful illustrations.
Outstanding Storytelling sourcebook!
Outstanding Storytelling sourcebook!
February 2, 2020
Such great stories and the perfect length to hold the attention of my 2 and 4 year old. Each story stated which country it originated in and each story has a little moral/lesson at the end - I think those are nice additions. I wish their was an audio version of this.
September 8, 2021
These stories were great for a bedtime read aloud. If I had been reading this just for myself, I would have found the repetition in all the stories tiresome, but repetition seems to work really well for kids.
October 10, 2023
Jane Yolen retells 31 fairy tale stories from around the world, and one original story of her own. Watercolor and pen-and-ink illustrations decorate each story. The rhyming coda she adds at the end of each story in lieu of a moral lis annoying.
December 18, 2017
Great collection of traditional fairy tales from around the world for young children. Perfect for bedtime read alouds.
February 10, 2019
Retold tales plus some originals aimed at a young audience. A few LOL moments in a diverse collection.
March 4, 2019
My kids loved these! Good variety and they didn't take out the creepy bits!
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January 22, 2020I really enjoyed this book because it contained all the classic stories. This would be a good book to pull a bunch of classic stories and have groups of children practice reading them.
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April 3, 2020This book can be used to introduce a fairy tail unit. It can also spark students ideas on creative writing.
April 25, 2020
It was fun to read these stories out loud with my kids.
May 1, 2020
Lovely short fairy tales that can be used to take up time between longer books and storytime activities.
June 26, 2021
LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! this book! The stories are wonderful and so are the illustrations. I definitely want to have my own copy.
January 20, 2022
Very good, short stories in this collection
June 7, 2024
Easily one of the best collections of stories I've ever read
March 7, 2025
Great collection of stories!
did-not-finish
April 29, 2025Pg 52
October 4, 2025
3.5; read-aloud with my children
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December 14, 2017My kids and I have all enjoyed this book. Fun, short fairytales and pictures.
January 6, 2018
This collection is geared to three to five year olds, and the stories are the perfect length for a bedtime read aloud. Some old familiar stories, some ones I’d never heard from other countries, and two Jane Yolen originals. Highly recommend this book for reading aloud.
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