Chilean Tales: Pictures Books from Chile and Thereabouts

Mariana and the Merchild
A Folk Tale From Chile
by Caroline Pitcher
illustrated by Jackie Morris
published by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (2000)

A kindly but lonely Mariana, living in a ramshackle hut by the sea, goes about her daily motions with an ache in her heart. She tries to befriend the local kids, who seem a bit wary of her.

One fine morning-after-the-storm, she finds a merbaby washed up ashore. She immediately takes a liking to her and brings her up with all the love she can pour into this relationship. The merbaby's mother, a gentle Sea Spirit who is nothing short of Amazonian,  allows Mariana to raise the child for a while.

Mariana laughs and plays with the child, ever so happy, and grateful for all the love. The wary children notice this softer side of her and start overcoming their reservations. However, she knows she has to surrender the child soon and not matter how hard she prepares for that day, she is not ready when the day comes.

Finally, bereft of the merbaby, Mariana gets inconsolable. But now, the kids who had been wary of her earlier, approach her and try to comfort her.

The illustrations are wonderful, even though the text was a bit clunky for a read aloud. The merging of the two worlds - the physical human one and the magical, mythical one - is seamless in the pictures, as if Nature, in its limitless capacity, has conjured up this realm where all this is possible.

[view more images at jackiemorris.co.uk]
[image source: Eerdmans Books]


The Day the Stones Walked
by T.A. Barron

illustrated by William Low
published by Philomel (2007)


We've all pondered on the symbolism and significance of the moai, the Stone Statues of Easter Island. While there is no conclusive evidence of its purpose and relevance, it is nevertheless intriguing to speculate on how they might have come into existence.

The author unfolds a moving story that searches the spiritual realm for a deeper understanding of our connection to this world and its people.

Young Pico finds it odd that his father prefers carving huge monoliths with faces larger than life. He wonders why his father does not hunt octopus or build boats like others. The land that once supported them has been gradually stripped. The complex culture that thrived in the island was failing.

When a tsunami approaches and he runs to warn his father, Pico finds himself submerged by the huge wave. As he struggles to get a breath, he notices a giant stone statue moving, reaching out, helping him surface and live. He remembers the legend about the giant stone figures: In times of trouble, they will rise and walk.

[image source: http://tabarron.com/books/picture-books/day-stones-walked/]



Ghost Hands
A Story Inspired by Patagonia's Cave of the Hands

by T.A. Barron
illustrated by William Low
published by Philomel (2011)

When the author visited the Patagonian Cave of Hands, he knew there was a story to be told. Even though it has remained a mystery, all the handprints in the cave, plus a lone footprint, painted by the native Tehuelche tribe of Patagonia has probably inspired many stories.

"The hands in the wondrous cave seems almost alive-- waving to us across centuries of time. I would love to meet those artists, to shake their living hands. And I would also love to ask them one question: Why in the world did you paint that foot?"

The author goes on to tell us his version of why there is a lone footprint. Auki, a young boy, is impatient, he can't wait to go hunting. His father says he is not ready. But the youth defies his father and sets out at dawn one fine day on his own anyway. He climbs up a cliff and waits. Sure enough a puma comes. He falls down, twists his ankle, crawls down, having escaped puma's claws.

At the bottom, by the icy river, he finds a cave. A cave full of handprints painted in bright colors. He meets the old man who does the painting. When the old man is not forthcoming with the reason he paints those hands, Auki decides to limp back to his home, tail between his legs so-to-speak, chiding himself for not being able to face up to the puma.

Suddenly he hears the old man scream and so he rushes back to the cave where the puma is about ready to pounce. He slides in between the puma and the old man and ends up kicking the puma in the face, thus chasing it away for now. His foot in agony, he faints. The old man carries him safely home.

When Auki is visited by the old man again, weeks later, Auki demonstrates that he has learnt patience by not asking those burning questions he had about those hands in the cave. The old man explains it in his own way stating that hands have protected his people always and this is a way to honor them. And then, he says he is going to paint someone very brave today, but not his hand. This time it will be the foot that saved the old man - Auki's foot!


[image source: amazon.com]

Not One Damsel in Distress

Why bother preserving and perpetuating outdated folktales that have little relevance to our lives today? Why read stories that are imagined in their most bizarre form and tailored to highlight a moral or a societal value?

The answer of course is, being old, these stories have been whetted and polished through the centuries, arriving at our doorstep sharp and full of wisdom.

The charm of  traditional tales lies in the outlandishness sometimes. The sheer impossibility of events and characters we encounter in such stories help us stay safely in our present protected world and explore the imaginary realm of evil and disaster with an ear cocked for advice and an eye focused on seeking justice.

Folk tales take us to another world, a slightly off-kilter one, where we can see the exaggerated realities of our own world and take away lessons that will change us for the better.

Growing up with a healthy dose of folk tales, these stories have a special place in my heart. I seek out anthologies today to help my children carry the torch forward. Of particular interest to me at this time are stories showing strong women protagonists. Not just for my daughter, but for my son as well; to celebrate smart, confident, fearless women who have always been in the shadows, never stepping forward to take their rightful place of equality.


Not One Damsel in Distress
World Folktales for Strong Girls
By Jane Yolen

Master storyteller, Jane Yolen, has written many books that are a pleasure to read and a treasure to house in our bookshelf.

What's not to love about strong, brave women who are quick-witted and self-sufficient? Thirteen folktales from around the world are retold in Yolen's expert words that remain true to the folk tale narration style and does not sugarcoat the harsh truths.

When faced with certain death or worse, should the girl wait for a chivalrous knight to swing by and save her? Or should she rely on her emotional intelligence and clever wit to extricate herself somehow and move on with her life? It is through such tales of unlikely happenings, some quite horrifying in today's context, that young girls can begin to grasp the complexity of the humankind and realize their own strengths and capabilities.

Not a book for the very young, the stories can get graphic and frightening for the uninitiated. However, the resident nine year old  loved each and every one of the stories, from Burd Janet to Li Chia, Fitcher's Bird to The Girl and the Puma...



Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters (1998)
by Kathleen Ragan
foreword by Jane Yolen
and
Outfoxing Fear, Folktales From Around the World
edited by Kathleen Ragan
with an introduction by Jack Zipes

Courageous mothers and warrior women abound in stories. We just need to know where to look, and how to see. Fearless Girls... celebrates 100 stories about such strong women who teach us to value all kinds of courage, not just the sword-fighting enemy-vanquishing kind.

Post 9/11, Ms.Ragan found herself seeking out stories to conquer fear, to face up to such evils in the world that was unimaginable until then. So, she sought out a virtual campfire to share folktales that, as the title says, outfox fear itself. While this book did seem insipid and disjointed, with the commentaries rather naive, there are a handful of stories that makes the reader sit up and think.

[image source: amazon.com, google books]

Three Minute Tales

Three Minute Tales
Stories from Around the World
by Margaret Read MacDonald


Grouped conveniently into 12 sections like Tales for the Young Listener, Riddle Tales, Humorous Tales, Scary Tales, Stories to Think About, and so on, the book has about 80 short tales that can be told in approximately 3 minutes, as a filler, or can be explored and expanded by the storyteller as needed.

The book is written with the storyteller in mind - providing suggestions for the beginner to hone their skills. The stories are drawn from various sources and the author cites how she came to learn about them as well.

The book made a wonderful bedtime reading for the resident second grader. Although quite a few stories are familiar, there are some quite unusual ones as well. Drawn from many cultures from around the world, the book is a treasure for parents who like to have a few stories handy to keeping the young ones entertained on long drives or on family strolls...

Back of the book lists More Short Tales for Telling.

[image source: MRM site]

Tales from Old Ireland

Tales from Old Ireland
retold by Malachy Doyle
illustrated by Niamh Sharkey


Folktales have a certain charm that is hard to pin down. Could it be the ambiguous delineation between humans and other creatures? Or the rich infusion of imagination and moral values and codes of the times? Or the larger-than-life presentation of the characters? Or the magic and the simplicity of the place itself where the stories originated?

Tales from Old Ireland collects and presents 7 treasured stories from Irish folklore that were passed down by the oral tradition of storytelling and still survive today. Notes at the back of the book cite the sources for these stories.

Illustrations by Niamh Sharkey are quirky and whimsical, much like the stories themselves, and are quite the visual treat. The deep burgundies, and velvety emerald greens, and the midnight blues, and the earthy browns, and the golden yellows, together with deceptively simple drawings make it a pure pleasure to behold.

The text preserves the magic of storytelling with its adroit use of the language. The stories transport the reader and the listener to an enchanted world that is full of possibilities, urging us to step forward with a willing suspension of disbelief.

Some stories could be quite intense for the younger ones, but the 7 yo enjoyed every one of them. Our  favorites were The Children of Lir and The Soul Cages. A Pronunciation Guide helped us enjoy the read-aloud sessions better.

Barefoot Books have always been a favorite publisher I rely on for superb children's books. Their 'Celebrating Art and Story' is not a gimmick, a tagline to attract attention, but a genuine commitment to bringing wonderful artists and writers to the forefront.

[image source: barefootbooks.com]

Wolf! Wolf!

Wolf! Wolf!
by John Rocco

Aesop's fables have the necessary timelessness, charm, and appeal, as evidenced by their popularity even today.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf, one of the tales attributed to Aesop, takes a sharp turn from the classic in this imaginative take by John Rocco.

An old and partially deaf wolf is tending to his wild vegetable patch, infuriated by the weeds he is unable to keep in check.

He hears a boy cry "Wolf! Wolf!" and lumbers over to the source believing he is being summoned for some odd reason.

He sees seething villagers respond to the same call, armed and ready to thrash the savage beast.

He hides and watches the juicy goats he cannot have.

He hobbles back to his home, hungry and tired.

How the boy manages to not get eaten, comes to willingly give one of his goats to the wolf, and what happens to the goat and the boy subsequently has to be read first-hand to be enjoyed.

The illustrations are what attracted me to the book at first glance at the library. And now that I've read it a few dozen times to the resident 3 yo, the illustrations and the cleverness of the story has left me dumbfounded! [ View sample pages]

Folktales and fables blur the line between humans and animals, infusing each with characteristics of the other. Rocco's Wolf lives in a cherry blossom filled Chinese countryside, wears a traditional shirt with the symbol of longevity on it, and carries a parasol. He seems determined to be a vegetarian, tired of the daily struggle to stalk and catch his meal.

As far as the villagers go, the story is much the same classic one where they turn up to find the boy making a fool of them. However, the clever narration comes from the perspective of the wolf - information we are not privy to in the traditional telling of the tale.

Did I mention the illustrations blew me away? The warm dusty tones of timelessness, the expressions on the villagers's faces, the relative sidelining of the boy's prominence (the central character of the original story), the various close-ups and angles of perspective of the scenes depicted, the refreshing setting... each page is a work of art, as John Rocco describes in the making of Wolf! Wolf! I was particularly fascinated by this fact:


Once I got all the details right, I made a tonal pencil drawing on Strathmore bristol paper. Once the drawing was complete I scanned it into my computer and digitally painted the colors using Adobe Photoshop.

Of course, there's  The True Story Of Three Little Pigs that exonerates the Big Bad Wolf, The True Story Of Goldilocks And The Three Bears which reveals the crafty side of Goldilocks, and The True Story Of Little Red Riding Hood  wherein we catch the green-eyed monster rearing inside Red Riding Hood after she helps Wolf 's total transformation...

Looks like Fresh Perspectives are becoming the norm in the retelling of classics these days.

[image courtesy of: Eric Carle Museum Shop]

The Greedy Sparrow: An Armenian Tale

The Greedy Sparrow: An Armenian Tale

retold by Lucine Kasbarian
illustrated by Maria Zaikina

Ages 4-8

Marshall Cavendish Children, April 2011

Folktales and fables from around the world have striking similarities in that they convey universal truth and wisdom, typically via animal protagonists, generously laced with humor. And yet, they differ in the presentation, drawing from cultural traditions of the people orally handing down these tales.

One of the Armenian folktales passed down through generations in the author's family orally is The Greedy Sparrow. The book dedication reads, To my forbears, great-grandmother, and father, all of whom preserved the sparrow fable through the ages. The great-grandmother mentioned is a celebrated storyteller from the Old Country.

I was delighted to get in touch with author/journalist Lucine Kasbarian a few weeks ago. As her website notes, the author is passionate about her ethnic Armenian heritage and enthusiastically shares it with the world.

The Greedy Sparrow is the first time English retelling of this tale in the children's picture book format. It starts with Once there was and was not a sparrow, which suggests that the tale may be real or imagined, we may never know.

A sparrow gets a thorn in his foot. He flies around and finds a kindly baker who removes the thorn and tosses it into her oven. The wily sparrow, instead of thanking her and moving on, comes back a while later and demands that he get his thorn back. Needless to say, the baker cannot give it back. Either you give me my thorn or you give me some bread demands the sparrow. And the baker has no choice but to give some bread.

The sparrow is not content. He goes about tricking and bartering item after item, including a new bride in the bargain, until he meets a minstrel with a lute. When the confounded minstrel has no choice but to hand over his lute, the sparrow seems contented. He starts singing the story, In place of a thorn, I got a bread. In place of a bread, I got a sheep... and so on till, ...I got a lute. And now I am a minstrel!

In all the gloating, he loses footing and ends up with a broken lute and a thorn in his foot. Back at Square One.

Trickery is not rewarded, especially when it takes advantage of the good nature of people who willingly help others. That message got cleverly (and clearly) conveyed to my six year old who pored over the illustrations with fascination, while reading the simple narration. She particularly like the speech bubbles, with red text reserved for the sparrow, which automatically made her change her voice and accent as she read aloud the sparrow's part in the narration.

Illustrator Maria Zaikina was approached to illustrate The Greedy Sparrow when the author and publisher viewed her Armenian folk animations on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ5NAXT9pLs

The bold, vibrant folk-style illustrations complemented the story well, transporting us to a time and place that evokes nothing but simple unadulterated joy, and possibly nostalgia for a bygone era.

Ms.Zaikina's illustrations reminded me of my childhood favorite Ladushki, Ladushki - Russian Folk Rhymes and Tales For Little Ones illustrated by Yuri Vasnetsov and retold in English by Irina Zheleznova, a book vibrant with color and imagination, which to this day stirs warm memories when I share it with my children.

References to places in Armenia, the map and activities on author's website and the traditional attire shown in the illustrations gave us a jump start to explore the geography and culture further.

Here is an interview with the author, conducted by Tom Vartabedian, at Asbarez.com.

[Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the author.]

[image source: Lucine Kasbarian's website]

[This post written for Saffron Tree]