Retold and illus. by Bernadette Watts

· Brief stories which take abstract ideas of good and bad, wisdom and foolishness, and make them concrete.

· Characteristics of a true fable (some stories that are called fables do not fit all of these, however):

o Characters are animals, or occasionally inanimate objects, which behave like human beings.

o Characters are flat, and stand for one human trait.

o Plot is very brief, with one incident.

o The story teaches a lesson, which may or many not be expressed in a proverb or maxim.

· Important fable collections:

o Aesop's fables is the best known fable collection for English-speaking children; Aesop was supposedly a slave in Greece in the sixth century, B. C., who told the stories, but we do not know whether or not he really existed; this collection was one of the first books ever printed in English, and the fables are in the pure fable form described above (Ex.: The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse).

o Fables collections from India include the Panchatantra (Hindu fables) and the Jatakas (Buddhist fables) (Ex.: The Monkey and the Crocodile).

o Fables of Jean de La Fontaine were written in the 17th century by a Frenchman; these are really literary tales (not oral folklore) written in French poetry; prose versions can be found in English: Brian Wildsmith has used several in picture books (Ex.: The North Wind and the Sun).

Parables

· Similar to fables, but characters are usually people, and there may be two short incidents instead of one.

· There are few parables in the English language, except Christ's parables in the New Testament.

Religious/Cultural Literature

Myths

Myths are a related body of stories considered to be truthful accounts of what happened in the remote past. Myths attempt to explain the beginning of the world, natural phenomena, the relationships between the gods and humans, and the origins of civilization. Myths, like legends, are stories told as though they were true.

The One-Eyed Giant and Other Monsters from the Greek Myths (Greenwillow, 1996)

Retold by Shirley Climo Illus. by Anne Rockwell

Atalanta's Race: A Greek Myth (Clarion, 1995)

Retold by Shirley Climo. Illus. by Alexander Koshkin

Stolen Thunder. (Clarion, 1994)

↑Creation Stories

Creation stories (or myths) are narrative projections of a culture's origins, an attempt for a collective group to define its past and probe the deeper meaning of their existence. Creation myths describe how the universe, the earth, life, and humanity came into being. With complex symbolism, a myth is to a culture is what a dream is to an individual. A culture's creation myth, or cosmogony, describes the how order came from chaos. The creation myth descends from a culture's desire to define the creation and bring order to the universe.

The Fire Children: A West African Story of Creation (Dial, 1993)

Retold by Eric Maddern Ill. By Frané Lessac

Moon Mother (HarperCollins, 1993)

Retold and illus. by Ed Young

The Woman Who Fell From the Sky: The Iroquois Story of Creation (Morrow, 1993)

Retold by John Bierhorst Illus. by Robert Andrew Parker.