| Folk and Fairy Tales
When Albert Einstein was asked how to develop intelligence in young people,
he answered: "Read fairy tales. Then read more fairy tales." It may also
be true that exposure to fairy tales helps develop imagination.
Sample some of the following activities to learn more about folk and
fairy tales.
Places To Go | People
To See | Things To Do | Teacher
Resources | Bibliography
Places To Go
The following are places to go (some real and some virtual) to find out
about folk and fairy tales.
Folktales
from China
Travel to China and read Chinese folk tales. Then travel to Japan and
experience Japanese folk tales.
Myths
and Fables from Around the World
Travel the globe and read folk tales, fairy tales, and myths from different
countries.
Visit your school or public library and check out all the versions of
Cinderella from cultures around the world. Have your students compare
them. There's Mufaro's Beautiful Daughers by John Steptoe, The Rough-faced
Girl by Rafe Martin, The Egyptian Cinderella by Shirley Climo, The Korean
Cinderella by Shirley Climo, The Turkey Girl : A Zuni Cinderella by Penny
Pollack, Yeh Shen : A Cinderella Story from China by Ai-Ling Louie, Ashpet
: An Appalachian Tale by Joanne Compton, as well as the tale by Charles
Perrault. And then there are the slightly wacky versions such as Cinder
Elly by Frances Minters, Cinder Edna by Ellen Jackson, Cinderella Bigfoot
by Mike Thaler, Cinderella Penguin by Janet Perlman, Cinderhazel by Deborah
Lattimore, and Princess Furball by Charlotte Huck. Don't forget Bubba
the Cowboy Prince by Helen Ketteman where Bubba, the over-worked, underappreciated
step-brother of Dwayne and Milton is magically transported by a Fairy
God Cow to the Big Dance.There,
Bubba falls in love with Miz Lurleen but has to rush off at midnight.
She tracks him down by using the smelly cowboy boot he left behind. It's
a satisfying read.
While you're at the pubic library, check out some of Shelley Duvall's
Fairy Tale Theatre videos. They are wonderful. The Three Little Pigs starring
Jeff Goldblum and Billy Crystal as two of the little pigs is a jewel.
The Moonlit
Road
Take a walk down this spooky, moonlit road to experience folk tales of
the American south.
People To See
Brothers
Grimm
Spend some time with Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm. They were wonderful storytellers.
Aesop's
Fables Online Collection
Meet Aesop. He was real person who lived sometime between 500 and 600
BC. He is famous for his moralizing fables. From this site, you can read
full text of all the fables. Have students read Aesop and then have them
read Jon Scieszka's Squids Will Be Squids which is his collection of very
funny fables.
Hans
Christian Andersen
Get to know Hans Christian Andersen. Did you realize that he wrote The
Little Match Girl, The Ugly Duckling, The Snow Queen, The Little Mermaid, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, The
Princess and the Pea, and more? All in all, he wrote 169 fairy tales. Here are additional
full text Andersen tales.
Legends
Spend some time with Robin Hood 
Things To Do
Aaron
Shepherd - Folk Tales
Read folk tales from around the world.
Read Politically Correct Bedtime Stories by James Garner. Does "The Duckling
That Was Judged On Its Personal Merits And Not On Its Physical Appearance"
sound better than the traditional title?
Stories
to Grow By
Read folk and fairy tales from around the world. There are teaching materials
and activities to go with many of the stories.
Childrenstory.Com
Read fairy tales online.
Fairy
Tale Trivia Quiz
Take a fairy tale quiz and record your score.
Snow
White
Kay Vandergrift of Rutgers University has written extensively about the
many versions (there are 36 versions!) and aspects of Snow White. Read
her hypertest version of Snow White to learn about "the fairest of them
all".
Have your students read The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon
Scieszka. It's a great book to teach the concept of point of view because
this tale is told through the eyes of the wolf (who claims that he is
not big or bad and that he was framed). Have students rewrite other fairy
tales from the view points of different characters in stories.
The
Little Red Riding Hood Project
Study 16 versions of this classic tale.
The
Cinderella Project
Study 12 versions of Cinderella.
Fairy
Tales
Find full text of dozens of fairy tales from Aladdin to the Wolf and the
Seven Kids.
Stories,
Folklore, and Fairy Tales Theme Page
Find curricular resources for the study of folk and fairy tales. There
are also links to instructional materials like lesson plans which will
help teachers provide instruction in this theme.
Folklore
and Mythology Electronic Texts
Find 15 versions of Cinderella, 5 versions of the Emperor's New Clothes,
9 different kinds of Frog Kings, and more.
Folk Tale
of the Month
Read a new folk tale each month.
Folk
and Fairy Tales
Browse through this list
of several hundred tales and discover one you’ve never heard of.
What about The Cat’s Elopement or Cannetella or The
Star Dollars?
Teacher Resources
Lesson Plans/Webquests
Bibliography
- Betts, Louise. The Classic Grimm's Fairy Tales. Philadelphia, Pa.
: Courage Books, c1989.
- Carter, Angela. Strange Things Sometimes Still Happen :Fairy Tales
from Around the World. Winchester, MA : Faber and Faber, 1993.
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