Traditional Literature

The Juniper Tree, and Other Tales from Grimm - Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm


Grimm, Jacob, and Wilhelm Grimm. The Juniper Tree, and Other Tales from Grimm. Translated by Lore Segal, New York, Farrar, Straus And Giroux, 1976.

This is a collection of Grimm fairy tales. There are approximately 13 stories in the volume, each with an illustration.  It's about 168 pages long. This book is genuinely difficult to read! It is filled with words that are out of date (I wasn't sure what a sexton was until I looked it up) and I couldn't find myself finishing a story without some effort. One of the most difficult parts of the story was that a new piece of dialogue didn't start a new line. Because of this, it was hard to keep up with who was speaking. The writing style of the book suggests that it is for an adult storyteller to tell to children. There are illustrations throughout the book at a rate of one per story. Each of the illustrations is beautifully and creatively drawn by Maurice Sendak of Where The Wild Things Are. While wonderful, the pictures themselves do not enhance the story, rather just act as decoration. 

The People Could Fly - Virginia Hamilton


Hamilton, Virginia. The People Could Fly. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.


This is a collection of Black American folk tales. There are 24 stories and an introduction is included. There are 173 pages in the volume. Each story is separated by various topics such as animal tales, supernatural tales, and tales of slaves running to freedom to name a few. Each of the stories is written in the dialect spoken such as Gullah or AAVE. There are several illustrations in the book and they do help move the story along. Given the way this book is written, I would say that this is a book written for an adult storyteller to tell to a child since it is written as if it's transcribing a story. 

Comments

  1. Jen CMay 31, 2024 at 6:26 AM

    Brief, but informative. Begin to connect your observations and opinions to evidence--what part of the book made you think that? Also, word count isn't usually addressed in the body of a review (some add it to the bib info) unless there is something striking about it. The average picture book is 32 pages. If you review one that is 60, that worth noting.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Picture Books (Week 2)

Image
Going Down Home With Daddy - Kelly Sterling Lyons Lyons, Kelly Starling . Going down Home with Daddy . Daniel Minter, Illustrator. Peachtree, 2019.     This book is about a family traveling to their grandma's house to have a family reunion. Lil Alan is nervous because he doesn't have anything to share like the rest of the family. The illustrations reflect the mood and setting of the story. Minter uses a combination of oranges and blues to set the scene using blue for night time and orange for the day light. Blue is also used to show shading and indoor places while orange is used primarily for the outside as well. The colors also cleverly show the mood as Alans nervousness shows through with the use of blue but also scenes of excitement are bright and orange. While Lil Alan's cousins are happy and excited to show what they are going to share with the family they are surrounded by a bright orange, Lil Alan himself is highlighted by blue. This is also highlighted within the ch
Read more

Board Books

Image
 An Alphabet Book Hair Love ABCs - Cherry, Matthew A. Cherry, Matthew A. Hair Love ABCs . Penguin, 29 Aug. 2023. This is a book about Black hairstyles! It intermixes terms for black hair with other imaginative phrases. The illustrations help visualize the word being presented. For example, the phrase "Rubber Band" is visualized by showing a dotted line from the girl's hair to a bottle to the dad's eye and the image shows the rubber band in the air. A Number Book Counting With Din Sum - Benard, Lacey Cheng, Lulu, and Lacey Benard. Counting with Dim Sum . Bitty Bao, LLC, 15 Oct. 2022. This is a counting book that incorporates counting in English and Chinese! Readers will learn about Chinese cuisine and each page has illustrations that correlate with the number being shown. A Concept Book My Feelings - Turner, Jeffrey Turner, Jeffrey. My Feelings . Sunbird Books, 1 Aug. 2024. This is a book about emotions. It f
Read more

Informational Books (Week 4)

Image
Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre Weatherford, Carole Boston. Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre . Illustrated by Floyd Cooper, Carolrhoda Books, 2021.      This is a nonfiction picture book about the horrifying history of the Tulsa Race Massacre and the once-great Greenwood neighborhood. Weatherford decided to write about this story due to her own family's history of facing racial violence. Cooper's grandfather also talks about his time in Greenwood and gives Cooper a first-hand account of the massacre during his youth. The writing style gives the book a fairy tale feeling by repeating the phrase "Once Upon a Time" at the beginning of each page.  It's used to tell the story of Greenwood as the magical, once-in-a-lifetime place it was; where Black people could prosper, get amazing healthcare, and a great education. But once the horror starts, the phrase is only used one more time to tell about the devastating violence that the community faced. Because the phr
Read more