Volumes 1, 2, and 3
easy folktales for beginning tellers
retold by Fran Stallings
edited by Hiroko Fujita
Each book contains seven of Fran's traditional folktales with delightful illustrations, retold in simple English for beginning tellers and learners of English. The accompanying CD provides Fran's lively performance of the stories, many with musical accompaniment. (Songs are fully notated in the book.)
These books & CDs were published in Japan (Fran to Hiroko Ohanashi no Hon, Tokyo: Isseisha Press, 1999), so the covers are all in Japanese! The English text appears on the righthand pages of the books. On the lefthand pages, you will see Japanese retellings of Fran's stories -- a fascinating comparison for cultural learning. Since some sections were printed only in Japanese, each book comes with a free supplement which gives English text for those sections: Fran's introduction, Fujita-san's preface, comments by both about the stories, and Fujita-san's fascinating articles about her adventures touring in America.
Volume 1 (book & CD) :
Sody Saleratus, Why Some Dogs Chase Cats, Crowded House, The Musicians of Bremen, My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean, Coyote and the Dogs, Shingebis & Old Man North Wind, Lizards' Tails
Volume 2 (book & CD) :
Open Them, Shut Them, Obedient George, Tug of War, The Story of a Giant Pumpkin, The Little Rooster & the Turkish Sultan, Are You Afraid of a Squeaky Door?, Snake and Earthworm.
Volume 3 (book only):
Wise Mother Mouse, The Old Woman and Her Pig, Red Red Lips, Teeny Tiny, Hi! My Name is Joe, Dogs' Tails, The Fox and the Geese, Cotton Tail Rabbit, Counting Donkeys, Pecos Bill and the Prairie-Size Rainbow (Judy Nichols), Spider and Fly, When the Rain Comes Down (Bob Devlin), Anansi and the Hat Shaking Dance, Stone Soup, Frog and Rain.