Let's Do Two - Folktales and Whoppers 

Ruth Manning-Sanders & Alvin Schwartz (The Scary Stories Guy)

Folktales are the survivors of all stories.  Passed down orally from generation to generation, these stories of regular folk - no royalty need apply - existed in multiple variations among different peoples and cultures long before the written word became commonplace.  As literacy became more widespread, more and more of these folktales were collected and committed to paper.  As time went on, a methodology was established for the collection of folktales/folklore that outlined the manner in which the stories were to be collected, recorded, analyzed and presented.  Paramount in this process was the identification of source material.  Who told you this? Where? When?  And where did they get the information?  Mother?  Grandfather?  The old woman who lives at the end of the street?

You get the idea.

Many modern collections of folktales and folklore offer extensive source materials.  Alvin Schwartz is an excellent example of an author who does just that.  On the other end is Ruth Manning-Sanders, who, outside of referencing a country of origin for her tales in the Forwards of her collections, cites no source material at all.  Does this lack of source material affect the readability of her stories?  Not at all.  A good story is a good story, and all Manning-Sanders is concerned with is telling a good story.  But from an academic viewpoint, and a personal one, the more sources, the better.

The American Folklore Society maintains a Folklore Wiki for anyone interested in learning more.

Book #7:  Whoppers: Tall Tales and Other Lies (1975) Alvin Schwartz, illustrated by Glen Rounds.
                 127 pages.

Alvin Schwartz (1927 - 1992) is best known for his Scary Stories series, a wildly popular  set of anthologies that consistently land on the most challenged books list of the ALA.  Schwartz published over 50 books in his lifetime,  including a number of books on folklore for children that were all illustrated by Glen Rounds.  Schwartz was meticulous in citing his sources.  In the 127 page Whoppers,  his notes, sources and bibliography take up 24 of those pages.

Alvin Schwartz at Wikipedia

Glen Rounds (1906 - 2002) was born in a sod house in North Dakota and before becoming an author/illustrator worked at number of jobs including cowboy and carnival medicine man.  The books he authored reflected his upbringing, the Whitey series of picture books on cowboys, and his later books on horses and ponies.  Rounds suffered from severe arthritis later in life, and as a result learned to draw with his left arm and continue illustrating.

Glen Rounds at Jacketflap

Whoppers is a collection of American Folklore that focuses on the tall tale.  The short (sometimes very short, like one sentence) stories are divided into chapters, some of which are Ordinary People, Ordinary Things, The Weather, and the sure to be a hit with kids Putrefactions and Other Wonders.  Schwartz tells of the day that the heat was so bad, the farmer had to feed his hens cracked ice to keep them from laying hardboiled eggs, to the man who swam halfway across the ocean, decided he couldn't make it, and swan back to the old doctor pulling teeth in Demijohnville.  Fun all around, with terrific illustrations by Rounds.


Whoppers: Tall Tales and Other Lies at Amazon


Book #8:  A Book of Witches (1966) by Ruth Manning-Sanders, Illustrated by Robin Jacques.
                 127 pages.

Ruth Manning-Sanders (1886 - 1988) was born in Wales, the daughter of a Unitarian minister, and grew up in Cheshire, England.  A prolific author and poet, she wrote over 90 books, among them a series of books of folklore for children, a total of 23 volumes all beginning with A Book of …, that ranged from changelings to wizards to dwarfs.  Manning-Sanders was not an academic, there are no lists of sources of bibliographies, but she was a wonderful storyteller who believed in happy endings and the triumph of good over evil.

Ruth Manning-Sanders at Wikipedia

Robin Jacques (1920 - 1995) had no formal art training, but went on to illustrate over 100 books in his lifetime, 25 of which were written by Ruth Manning-Sanders.  He was born in London, England and served as art editor for The Strand magazine.

Robin Jacques at Wikipedia


A Book of Witches was the fourth in Manning-Sanders series on children's folklore.  Beautifully illustrated in black and white by Robin Jacques, it includes twelve tales of witches from around the world, four of which are from Germany.  The tales are well-told and enjoyable.  The endings are never in doubt, for as Manning-Sanders writes in the Forward:


               "…however terrible the witches may seem…they are always defeated….it is the
                 absolute and very comforting rule of the fairy tale that the good and brave shall
                 be rewarded, and that bad people shall come to a bad end."


If only that were true.


A Book of Witches at Amazon

A Master Illustrator and a Mother-Daughter Writing Team: Tenggren, Gelders-Sterne and King Arthur

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table

Arthurian legend, the body of stories and romances based on King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, is also known as the matter of Britain.  A long list of creative works in every imaginable medium have been inspired by these stories, a few examples being Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series,  Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, the musical Camelot by Lerner and Loewe, the list goes on and on, from literature to opera to film, television and even comic strips - remember Prince Valiant?

What with this wealth of creative output, it serves to have a base of knowledge of the original tales.  While Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur is a classic, it's safe to say that it's a bit of an intimidating read for the purpose of introduction.  As an alternative, consider the subject of today's post.

Book #5:  King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (1962) illustrated by Gustaf Tenggren,  

retold by Emma Gelders-Sterne and Barbara Lindsay.  A Golden Illustrated Classic. 140 pages.

Gustaf Tenggren (1896 - 1970) was a Swedish-American artist, illustrator and animator.  He was amazing.  His best-selling illustrated book of all time was The Pokey Little Puppy (1942), another Golden Book.  Tenggren was a designer of numerous Disney films, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Bambi.  I first read King Arthur over thirty years ago, and while I did forget some of the stories, I never forgot the illustrations.  Tenggren doesn't bypass the gorier aspects of the stories - this was the man who designed the terrifying forest in Snow White - so a sword through the skull will produce blood.  Copious amounts.  You can check out his artwork at the link below:

Gustaf Tenggren's World

Emma Gelders Sterne (1894-1971) was born in Birmingham, Alabama an began writing at an early age.  She was active in women's suffrage and social welfare, and a member of the ACLU and the NAACP.  Many of her books focused on history and biography for children.  In addition to writing King Arthur with her daughter Barbara Lindsay, some of her other notable works included Amarantha Gay, M.D. (1933), Long, Black, Schooner: The Voyage of the Amistad (1953), and I Have a Dream (1965).

Emma Gelders Sterne from the Encyclopedia of Alabama

Beginning with the Sword in the Stone and ending with the death of Lancelot, King Arthur delivers the complete body of Arthurian lore in a highly readable and understandable manner.  The authors don't shy away from medieval terms and phrases, but care is taken to maintain the flow of the narrative, excellently supported by page after page of color illustrations.  Children's and YA fantasy is an extremely popular genre, and present and future readers could only benefit from reading this book, starting in the intermediate grades and up.

Originally published in 1962, the book was reissued with the original illustrations in 2002.

Question #5:

No inquiries so far for this week.  Anyone?

Welcome!

Welcome to Second Look Books, a blog for lovers of children's literature.

Have you ever tried to remember a favorite book from your childhood?  Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's not, and sometimes when the book falls into the when-it's-not category it can be well nigh impossible.  You know the book, you can see the cover art, sort of remember the plot, but even with that you still can't recall a title, author, or illustrator.

Been there, done that, many times over.  As a children's librarian, I'm often asked to find the blue book with the dog on the cover, or the story about the girl with the garden and the magic stick, I think it came out in the sixties, maybe, could have been earlier, with a red cover, do you know the one I mean?  It gets interesting.

What I'm hoping to do with Second Look Books is create a home for all these lost stories.  Every week, I'll post a short synopsis of a children's book from the past, and post a question regarding a lost story.  Hopefully, one of you will be able to identify the story, or post a question about your own lost story.  Stories matter.

 Children's Book #1:  Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright.  Original illustrators Beth & Joe Krush.

Before the days of organized sports, scheduled play-dates, and cell phones with GPS tracking, kids would leave the house in the morning to play outside and only return home for lunch and dinner.  GAL, was a 1957 Newbery Honor book that tells the story of tween cousins Portia and Julian and the summer they discovered an abandoned summer colony in the country at Gone-Away Lake.  It turns out that the colony was not completely abandoned.  Two former residents, brother and sister Minnehaha Cheever and Pindar Payton, have returned.  Now well into their seventies, the two live in separate houses and wear old-fashioned clothes stored for decades in trunks in the attic.  The siblings befriend the cousins, telling them stories about the past, allowing them to build a clubhouse, and teaching them all about nature.  Eventually, a crisis involving Portia's little brother Foster leads to the discovery of the cousins' summer distention and friendships by their respective families.  It's a happy ending for a quiet story that celebrates friendships of all kinds and one very special summer.

Sequel:  Return to Gone-Away Lake ,  1961.

Gone-Away Lake at Wikipedia


Question #1:  

A picture book about a man who cooks.  He wears a chef's hat, and everyday he cooks just one item.  He always cooks too much, and then has a problem about where to put all of the leftover food.  I think at the end of the story, he decides to share his food with others, but I'm not sure.  Book is from the 1960s (maybe).

Anybody recognize this one?