TITLE: Medieval Folk Tales for Children
AUTHOR: Dave Tonge
PUBLISHER: The History Press, 2020
ISBN: 9780750990943
PODCAST EPISODE: None
REVIEWER: Tracey Norman
This is another beautiful book from The History Press. The artwork is inspired by illustrated manuscripts, a couple of which are named in the introduction so that curious readers can look them up and see the original drawings. The stories take as their theme the seven deadly sins, and each sin has three stories ascribed to it. The author is a storyteller, and like Tom Phillips’s Forest Folk Tales for Children, this book is presented almost as a written version of a live event. It has an engaging, fun, chatty style, with a lot of alliteration and a particular way of beginning each story which will quickly become familiar to readers, giving plenty of potential for even greater enjoyment and amusement when reading aloud.
The book opens with a description of the medieval period and how stories such as these were once shared, mentioning such terms as “framing narrative” and describing different types of story. The author then invites his readers to consider their own framing narrative in which to enjoy the book, making some suggestions that they might like to employ. I particularly liked this method of inviting deeper interaction and engagement with the stories.
Each of the seven deadly sins has its own section, most of which begin with an anecdote about a King who committed that particular sin, plus a description of the sin itself. Each story is followed by a rhyming couplet summarising the tale, which, again, offers another opportunity for fun when reading aloud, as well as neatly providing a snappy aide memoire to lead a young reader into a discussion of the story at a later date.
I had heard versions of a few of the tales in this book, but most were new to me, and I was amused at the number of stories which involved bottoms and farting – young readers will, I am sure, find this hilarious. That aside, the message in each story, as well as its showcasing of the deadly sins and why they are bad, is clearly presented and unambiguous.
This is a delightful and educational collection of stories which will engage and entertain the whole family with their humour whilst simultaneously sneaking in a significant amount of history and literature.
AUTHOR: Dave Tonge
PUBLISHER: The History Press, 2020
ISBN: 9780750990943
PODCAST EPISODE: None
REVIEWER: Tracey Norman
This is another beautiful book from The History Press. The artwork is inspired by illustrated manuscripts, a couple of which are named in the introduction so that curious readers can look them up and see the original drawings. The stories take as their theme the seven deadly sins, and each sin has three stories ascribed to it. The author is a storyteller, and like Tom Phillips’s Forest Folk Tales for Children, this book is presented almost as a written version of a live event. It has an engaging, fun, chatty style, with a lot of alliteration and a particular way of beginning each story which will quickly become familiar to readers, giving plenty of potential for even greater enjoyment and amusement when reading aloud.
The book opens with a description of the medieval period and how stories such as these were once shared, mentioning such terms as “framing narrative” and describing different types of story. The author then invites his readers to consider their own framing narrative in which to enjoy the book, making some suggestions that they might like to employ. I particularly liked this method of inviting deeper interaction and engagement with the stories.
Each of the seven deadly sins has its own section, most of which begin with an anecdote about a King who committed that particular sin, plus a description of the sin itself. Each story is followed by a rhyming couplet summarising the tale, which, again, offers another opportunity for fun when reading aloud, as well as neatly providing a snappy aide memoire to lead a young reader into a discussion of the story at a later date.
I had heard versions of a few of the tales in this book, but most were new to me, and I was amused at the number of stories which involved bottoms and farting – young readers will, I am sure, find this hilarious. That aside, the message in each story, as well as its showcasing of the deadly sins and why they are bad, is clearly presented and unambiguous.
This is a delightful and educational collection of stories which will engage and entertain the whole family with their humour whilst simultaneously sneaking in a significant amount of history and literature.