Stories from Around the World

by Heather Amery, Linda Edwards (Illustrator)

Collects twenty-two folk tales from around the world, including "Leyla and the Lamp" from Persia, "The Magic Fish Hook" from New Zealand, and "The Magic Doll" from North America.

Genres: Childrens, Fiction, Picture Books, Geography, Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Pre K

128 pages, Hardcover

First published October 27, 2000

About the author

Heather Amery was born and brought up in Bath, Somerset. Heather has written over a hundred books for children, including alphabet books, science and history books, craft books, classical fairy tales, a series for beginner readers called Farmyard Tales, Usborne Bible Tales, and Greek Myths.

Reviews

[Ashley Catelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember reading this as a kid and I loved it.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very beautiful book, the illustrations are stunning for each story. It's a nice snapshot of small stories, similar to fables, from all around the world.
A few of my favourites:
How the turtle got it's shell - because the turtle liked its home more than a God's party
How birds got bright feathers - the greedy snake felt guilty eating a the flowers so when he shed his skin the birds ate it and turned bright.
The magic fish hook - the story of maui.
Thor's Hammer - the hammer is stolen and Thor must pretend to be a bride to reclaim it.
The ivory wand - a Chinese elder has his wand stolen and his cat and dog go on a mission to steal it back.
Nail Soup - a man, tired and hungry from wandering asks a woman for help. She says she has no food so he says about using a rusty nail he has to make soup. He tricks her into adding a lot of food and then leaves with a full stomach.

[Ebookwormy1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best ways to begin to form an elementary understanding of a culture is to read it's children's stories. The stories passed onto children often highlight the cultural values and prohibitions of a people, as well as the conflicts that animate their lives. If you are learning a language, one of the early marks of fluency is the ability to read children's stories in the acquired language.

Stories from Around the World won't help you to learn these stories in their original language. But, it will take you, and your child or student, on a tour of the world in English. Students can be further aided by finding locations on a map or globe, and by consulting the hand drawn world map in the flyleaf. Reading parents can enjoy stories that expand their primary culture. The book does lean European, but it is a worthy start. The culturally appropriate borders and few sparse pictures enhance the experience for young people or budding artists.

22 stories are shared from the following locations:
Australia
Persia
Greece
France
South America (general)
New Zealand
Germany
Mexico
India
Scandinavia
Italy
Holland
Morocco
China
Czech Republic
Spain
Africa (general)
Russia
Britain
North America (general)
Japan
Cambodia

This is a good, solid contribution to literature that develops cultural awareness. For a complementary title in this genre that is for slightly older children, see

The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book, Hartman, 1998
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Karla · Rating 5 out of 5]

My four year old daughter loves this book. We read one story every night from it. She likes that she has to make a picture in her mind for the story instead of rely on pictures in a book. The illustrations really are amazing. I also love that there are stories in here that I've never heard. It seems like a great transition book from little stories to maybe a chapter book. I highly recommend it to other parents. Even my 2 year old will sit for most of the stories.

[Emmie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stories from Around the World is a collection of stories that are based in different countries, just as the name suggests. This is probably our third time reading through this book and we all have enjoyed it every time. These stories give you a peek into different cultures, what they believe and value or they have life lessons like Aesop's Fables.

This time around my oldest noticed themes and said with one of the later stories, "I knew they were going to get married." He found a common element among many of the stories. This is good for finding connectivity but I think he was also a bit annoyed by it.

That being said, most stories valued hard work, doing what is right and looking out for others. While many of these stories are not even close to Christian, they did provide opportunities to talk about what God's Word says about the idea of the story.

[Luella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yesterday, I read the book ‘Stories from around the world’ a compilation of folk and cultural stories from almost all the countries in the world. Most of the stories have been orally passed down and retold, so there is no author just a writer who recorded these tales. This book was very fascinating as it allows insight to different countries values and traditional beliefs. It also is a way to teach morals and lessons as in most of the stories have ending morals. The stories have a basic plot where there is a deviant antagonist and a good protagonist which shows the antagonist the way of goodness. This book is probably for the ages of 7-10 years old.

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone looking for a traditional set of stories beyond the usual Grimm's or Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales need look no further. This anthology contains stories that, while not commonly heard of here in America, seem familiar nonetheless with classic messages such as not judging others in haste and being happy with what you have.

[Jaimie Stepro · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories are fairly entertaining in this book and begin to stretch a young child's capacity for sitting through longer stories. However, I still fee that this would be even better with more illustrations as it's intended for pre-K (3-4 yr olds). Sometimes I'll summarize the story and point to the pictures around the border while I'm reading to my younger kids if they begin to get restless.

[Justine Trokey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun and entertaining collection of fairytales and myths from all over the world. It's has beautiful illustrations and lovely colorful pages. There's also a simple map to reference in the front cover so you can show your listeners where in the world the story is coming from. A great collection indeed!

[Margaret Chind · Rating 5 out of 5]

My middle daughter (9), the spirited one loves this book. We are reading it with P4/5 plans and she always returns for every single story. We own this and bought it second-hand. This was recommended and scheduled by Sonlight Curriculum P4/5, which we use for K5.

[Cathy Sheetz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Folk tales gathered from around the world.

This is a good book to use in a comparison of a tale told and adapted to a culture or people. Can be used with a writer's workshop where student retell or adapt a fairy tale or folk tale. Read-aloud level appropriate for K or 1st grade.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty much every story ended in an arranged marriage. My kiddos will definitely enjoy this during their continent study though.

[Whitney Pittsenbarger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love interweaving these stories in our world homeschool studies!

[Jane Scholey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant set of short stories to read aloud or just put in your book corner!

[Jaden John · Rating 5 out of 5]

stories are the best

[HeatherAnne Norbury · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyable collection of folk lore tales.

[Mary Burkholder · Rating 5 out of 5]

My children loved this educational book of folklore and legends from around the world. It is often fanciful and there is one story about a witch I didn’t personally like to read to my children.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this to my son. It was a lovely collection of short stories, perfect for bedtime.

[Noelani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book which I read over and over again to my daughter and later when she learned to read, she read over and over again as well.

[Hm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goood💝

[Vera Arantes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beautifully illustrated Easy to read

[Marissa77 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would give this book 22 stars if I could

[Tia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read "Stories from Around the World" to my kids as part of their bedtime reading. They really enjoyed the different stories as well as being read too. They can read the stories by themselves already but love bedtime stories. This is an interesting collection of stories from various countries that have been passed around as fables to teach or to entertain, and it works and helps to expose your child to history or even to cultural differences. Some stories are funny, but others were just interesting.

Here's the link to Amazon where you can purchase it or you can contact a Usborne representative as well:
http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Around-...

[Jennesy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an AWESOME book to reference to when doing a chapter on geography or history. This book gives so many examples of stories of people all over the world from what they look like to a little piece of their history or background. This book would allow the kids to see each country and gather a little piece of information from that country. As a geography or history activity I could allow the kids to choose a country randomly out of a hat and then have them research their country, using this book as a reference/resource obviously. Then, have them present, in any way they want, to the class what they found out and what they took away from the culture.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I like this book well enough but I don't love it.

There are funky illustrations, though not on every page. (Although every page does have a border.) There is a very useful world map labelled with the places the stories take place in.

My problem with the book is that too many of the stories didn't have strong female characters and too many of them had a female marrying a guy she barely knows and living happily ever after. One expects this of Snow White, but one would think that the editor would choose stories of the world that were more progressive.

[Vivi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book introduced my daughter to world map (on its first 2 pages) and she had fun pointing to places she knew (where her grandparents live, etc). So we start the stories by asking her which country in the map she wants to read. I even made a small picture from one story she likes (Leyla from Persia) and put it on our wall world map.

[Emmie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was part of the read alouds in our P4/5 Curriculum from Sonlight. As with any story book, you will not necessarily like them all, but I did enjoy the majority of the stories in this book. It is fun to see different folk tales from around the world and compare them to each other. Lillian enjoyed reading these stories and learning a little more about the cultures we were talking about.

[Kerstin Olcott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the borders and illustrations in this book. I didn't love every single story, some were a little weird or boring but for the most part I thought it was great for my girls to get a look into other cultures and traditions. This book was a favorite.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good intro to folk tales from all over the world.
The only thing that I didn't like about the book was that is is so small. I'd love to see a bigger version because the photos are so nice and colorful and the kids liked them.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another book from the Sonlight curriculum. Fun short stories. We are actually using this book again as we do CC1,2 and 3 depending on what part of the world we happen to be studying that week..krb 2/23/16