"Talk does not cook the rice." Chinese proverb (p.137)

Introduction:
The simple introduction states that this collection contains folktale, parables, and proverbs from around the world.  It also mentions that stories are powerful teaching tools.

Table of Contents: Stories are divided by local as in the case of Zen stories from Japan and by religious group as in Jewish or Christian tales. There are no illustrations except small decorative "borders" that divide the title from the story.

The stories themselves:
Most of the stories are quite short and simply told.  They appear quite tellable as written or they could be embellished. The tales are suitable for a variety of ages and some for all ages.  The stories are quite good, but in the few areas where I have some expertise, I wonder at the stories selected. I suppose with so many stories to choose from, it must have been a hard selection process.

Source Notes:
The source notes are a real treasure. Each section has some interesting background common to all the stories. Forest then describes the history of the tales and various sources. She says what she based her stories on but not how much she changed them. The couple stories that I was familiar with do not appear to be greatly altered.

There is a list of proverbs from various countries.

I would recommend this book as a very good storytelling resource.

©2004 Librarians.info. All rights reserved. Karen Woodworth-Roman Last updated 5 May 2004.