It’s all about folk tales and fairy tales here at Hope Is the Word this Read Aloud Thursday. I find that I gravitate toward folk tales while I’m browsing for books at the library, but I don’t know why. Perhaps it is because often the illustrations are rather old fashioned looking, and I usually like old fashioned stories. At any rate, my girls tend to agree that these tales make for some interesting read-alouds!
Lulu’s favorite this week was Caterina, the Clever Farm Girl by Julienne Peterson. Caterina is an Italian (Tuscan) folk tale about a wise farmer’s daughter who wins the heart of the king through her cleverness. However, her ability to make Solomon-like decisions eventually angers her husband, and he no longer allows her to appear with him at court. Caterina, though, manages to win back both his head and his heart in the end. This is a girl-power book with a happy, non-male-bashing ending. The illustrations by Enzo Giannini are very appropriately Italian in style and appearance. Highly recommended! (I couldn’t find a picture of the book at Amazon, but you can purchase a rather expensive used copy of the book there if you can’t find it at your library.)
We also enjoyed the Hans Christian Andersen tale Thumbelina, retold and illustrated by Brian Pinkney, this week. I know that there are many, many versions of the Thumbelina story available, and indeed, we own one or two ourselves. It is Brian Pinkney’s wonderful illustrations that makes this particular version a stand out. They are very vibrant and colorful that one almost feels like she is outside in burgeoning nature when reading this story, and yet the illustrations still retain a fairy-tale quality. This is a beautiful retelling of this classic fairy tale.
We finished another chapter book read-aloud this week, too. Go here for the details!
What have you been reading together this week? Leave a comment or a link to your blog entry and tell us all about it!
Filed under: Picture Books, Read Aloud Thursday |
Hope Is the Word 
We love folktales, too. I’ve been reading an Indian (not Native American but India-Indian) folk tale this week over and over and over for my girls and they are loving it. My 3yo likes to try and read it to herself so I want to try and get a video of it before I have to return it to the library. 🙂
OH! Thumbelina was a favorite of mine when I was little. I suppose she’s STILL a favorite. =) I LOVE your book picks this week!
Mine is up also and you can see it here:
http://www.readingtoknow.com/2009/04/read-aloud-thursday-author-highlight.html