Through the Grapevine: World Tales Kids Can Read and Tell

Through the Grapevine: World Stories that Kids Can Read and Tell, written by Martha Hamilton and Mitch Weiss, is a collection of 31 folk tales from around the world. Although I had been putting off reading the required collection of folk tales, I really enjoyed reading this book. It’s probably my favorite book that I’ve read in that genre.

This book seems like it would really lend itself well to being used in a classroom. There is a map of the world at the front of the book, on which each of the countries where the stories come from are labeled. This is really useful because it shows the huge variety of cultures and countries the authors chose to include stories from. There is at least one story from every continent except Antarctica, which is conveniently left off of the map. This map could be photocopied and given to students as they read the stories or be displayed somewhere in a prominent location for everyone to reference as they read. The authors provide an Introduction, which is useful because it describes how these stories came into existence. Another helpful thing about this book is that it includes two sections entitled “About the story” and “Tips for Telling”. These sections always appear at the end of the story. Both are helpful to teacher using the book in their classroom and to readers reading it. The authors often include resources where the read can find similar stories or more information, which is extremely helpful. Finally, the “Story Sources” section at the end of the book is helpful because it shows where the authors found their sources. It works together with other elements to make the book more authentic.

A lot of the stories I read in this collection remind me of other, similar folk tales I’ve heard before. For example, the first story about a wise judge who used his intelligence to outsmart the true criminal and found him guilty reminds me of a story about a judge who decides which of two women is a baby’s true mother by suggesting they cut the baby in half and share it. There is a judge who reaches the truth by what seem to be confusing methods in both stories. There is even another similar story in this book—“The Silent Witness”. In this story, a man proves his innocence by not speaking to the judge and not answering his questions during a trial. The “Silent Witness” reminds me a little bit of the Cinderella fairy tales because the poor man is the good, innocent one, while the rich man is mean and greedy.

One of my favorite stories is “Scrambled Eggs”, where a farmer stops at an inn to eat eggs and promises to return later to pay his bill. He forgets and later receives a bill for $4,000. The innkeeper alleges that those ten eggs could have hatched into chickens, laid more eggs, and then multiplied exponentially. The farmer’s lawyer shows up late for the trial, saying that he was busy planting boiled corn so he could have more corn. The judge sees the logic in this argument (boiled corn won’t grow, just like scrambled eggs won’t hatch chickens) and lets the farmer go innocent. My other favorite story is “The Hero of Holland”, where a boy finds a hole in a dike and stops it with his finger until someone comes to help repair is. It is important to remember the impact that just one person can have, like saving a whole country from a flood! “The Gorilla That Escaped”, an American “shaggy dog” story, seemed really out of place. Although the authors explain why they chose to include it, is still seems an odd addition.

Many of these stories remind me of other books or stories I have heard. “Just a Drop of Honey”, a story about a drop of honey starting a civil war, reminds me of the Eve Bunting story about the terrible things. Because the king doesn’t think the drop of honey and the subsequent events concerned him, the situation eventually escalates into a civil war. He ignores what is happening, just like the rabbits do in the Eve Bunting story. When I read “The Blazing Rice Fields”, a story about a Japanese man who saves the people of his village from a tsunami, immediately made me think about the tsunami in Thailand and other Pacific countries a few years ago. I wonder if there will be stories like this one about that event years to come.

These stories all seem to share similar themes. Someone is outsmarted (“Scrambled Eggs”, “The Silent Witness”). Good triumphs over bad (“The Thief Who Aimed To Please”, “Turtle Returns a Favor”). Another similarity I found between the stories is the recurrence of the number three. I remember learning about how three often shows up in fairy tales in my high school German class. This number shows up in “The Baker’s Daughter”, where the mean daughter tries three times to bake bread. It also shows up in “The Boy Who Battled the Troublesome Troll” where there were three brothers and it was the third who outsmarts the trouble. This book was such a great read! I wonder if there is a collection of different versions of the same story. That would be fun.