Five traditional Japanese tales: “One-inch Fellow, “The Good Fortune Kettle,” “The Tongue-Cut Sparrow,” “Momotaro,” and “The White Hare and the Crocodiles.”
Favorite Fairy Tales Told In Japan (Favorite Fairy Tales Book 13)
Folklore and Fairy Tales
The Painted Wall And Other Strange Tales (Aesop Accolades (Awards))
Honor Book for the Society of School Librarians International’s Best Book Award – Language Arts, Grades K-6 Novels. Selected as one of four recipients of the 2004 Aesop Accolade. Selected by the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association as one of the PSLA YA Top Forty Fiction Titles 2003. At about the time the Grimm Brothers were gathering their famous collection of folk stories and fairy tales in Europe, in China a similar collection of almost five hundred stories had just been compiled by the scholar Pu Sing-ling. Drawing on oral and written sources, he called his collection of the strange and wondrous Strange Tales from a Studio of Leisure. The fruits of his life’s work become immensely popular with storytellers who performed the stories in teahouses, where rapt audiences would sit for half a day drinking tea and listening to tales of ghosts, fox fairies, and other wonders. Almost unknown in the West, the stories are given new life in this important work by the masterful Michael Bedard.
Grandma Chickenlegs
In this variation of the traditional Baba Yaga story, a young girl must rely on the advice of her dead mother and her special doll when her wicked stepmother sends her to get a needle from Grandma Chickenlegs.
The Dwarf Giant
Prince Mainichi and Princess Ichinichi are visited by a rude dwarf, who inflicts upon them evil and dangerous games before revealing his true self.
I Once Was A Monkey: Stories Buddha Told
A retelling of six Jatakas, or birth stories, which illustrate some of the central tenets of Buddha’s teachings, such as compassion, honesty, and thinking clearly before acting.
Ten Suns: A Chinese Legend
When the ten sons of Di Jun walk across the sky together causing the earth to burn from the blazing heat, their father looks for a way to stop the destruction.
The Girl Who Wanted To Hunt: A Siberian Tale
A young girl uses her skills as a hunter to avenge her father’s death and to escape her evil stepmother.
Weighing The Elephant (Folktale)
In a small Chinese village lives a baby elephant, Huan-huan. The evil Emperor issues an impossible puzzle: the villagers can save Huan-huan only if they can deduce how much it weighs. A child comes up with an ingenious, scientifically sound answer.
The Snow Wife
When a Japanese woodcutter breaks his promise and describes his encounter with a terrifying snow woman, he loses his wife and must make a dangerous journey to win her back.
Terrible Eek
A father’s fear of the terrible leak ultimately saves him from a thief and wolf.