Reference Reviews

Lawrence Looks at Books

The Greenwood Library of World Folktales: Stories from Great Collections, edited by Thomas A. Green. 4 vols. 1,858p. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008. 978-0-313-33783-3; 2007-41323. $299.95.

This anthology of folktales provides students and general readers with a representative collection of oral traditions from all regions of the world. All told, some 470 stories featuring 107 cultural groups are presented. Each entry indicates a source of publication, date and culture or region of origin. Introductory notes discuss major themes or motifs and indicate relationships to other genres and tales. Such notes are more intended to spur discussion than to explain the features of the stories. The tales are presented in their entirety, and forms include both verse and prose. The stories are arranged first by region, then by culture. Most cultural groups are represented by multiple tales. Coverage includes both the familiar as well as the obscure. Thus readers can find Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel and Jack the Giant Killer as well as The Scabby Shaman, The Yuri-Ulu and Why Men and Tigers are Enemies. Common themes are deliberately repeated. So readers can find creation myths or wicked stepmothers from almost every continent. Variants of familiar stories also are featured, including a Tar Baby tale from the Natchez Indians and a Frog Prince from Sri Lanka. A brief glossary and the cumulative index are repeated in each volume. The index permits access to the stories by title, region, cultural group, genre, motif, character archetype, or broad subject. The result is an excellent tool for teaching and exploring the use of one of the world’s most ubiquitous literary art forms. This collection is suitable for audiences in high school, public and academic libraries.
—John R.M. Lawrence