Myths and Hero Tales: A Cross-Cultural Guide to Literature for Children and Young Adults

(Hardback)

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Description

This one-stop cross-cultural selective guide to recent retellings of myths and hero tales for children and young adults will enable teachers and library media specialists to select comparative myths and tales from various, mostly non-European cultures. The focus is on stories from Native America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Central and South America, and Oceania. The Guide contains extensively annotated entries on 189 books of retellings of myths and hero tales, both ancient and modern, from around the world published between 1985 and 1996. Represented are 1,455 stories suitable for use with young people from mid-elementary through high school. The entries, arranged alphabetically by writer, contain complete bibliographic data, age and grade levels, and evaluative annotations. Seven indexestitle, author, illustrator, culture, story type, name, and grade levelmake searching easy. The story type index will enable teachers to select comparative myths and tales from different cultures on more than 50 types of myths and hero tales. Among the many myth types cited are origin of human beings and the world, comparative social customs and rituals, natural and heavenly phenomena, animal appearance and behavior, searches and quests, and tricksters. Among the hero tale types are fools and buffoons, kings and queens, warriors, monster slayers, important female figures, magicians, voyagers and adventurers, and spiritual leaders. The Guide concludes with a bibliography of retellings published earlier that have come to be considered standard works.

Reviews

.,."the most comprehensive guide to myth and hero tales available anywhere."-VOYA
...the most comprehensive guide to myth and hero tales available anywhere.-VOYA
Brief, incisive critical reviews of 189 books, published between 1985 and 1996, that contain 1455 myths and hero tales form the heart of this readable, extremely useful sourcebook. Scholarly accuracy and literary quality are the authors' chief criteria for inclusion, but they also comment trenchantly on illustrations....A 26-item bibliography of standard works adds to the high reference value here.-School Library Journal
Extremely useful to school librarians, teachers, parents, and students looking for myths and tales either to read or to add to library collections.-Choice
Very useful for school and public libraries.-Booklist/Reference Books Bulletin
Very useful for school and public libraries.Booklist/Reference Books Bulletin
..."the most comprehensive guide to myth and hero tales available anywhere."-VOYA
"Extremely useful to school librarians, teachers, parents, and students looking for myths and tales either to read or to add to library collections."-Choice
"Very useful for school and public libraries."-Booklist/Reference Books Bulletin
"Brief, incisive critical reviews of 189 books, published between 1985 and 1996, that contain 1455 myths and hero tales form the heart of this readable, extremely useful sourcebook. Scholarly accuracy and literary quality are the authors' chief criteria for inclusion, but they also comment trenchantly on illustrations....A 26-item bibliography of standard works adds to the high reference value here."-School Library Journal

Author Bio

ALETHEA K. HELBIG is Professor of English Language and Literature at Eastern Michigan University. For more than 20 years she has been teaching mythology and hero tales, as well as Native American literature and the Bible as literature to prospective teachers. A former president of The Children's Literature Association, she has received the State of Michigan Award for Outstanding Teaching and Publication. She is coauthor of This Land Is Our Land: A Guide to Multicultural Literature for Children and Young Adults (Greenwood, 1994) and Dictionary of American Children's Fiction, 1990-1994 (Greenwood, 1996), plus a number of other critical reference books. She has published more than 100 articles in professional journals and reference books. AGNES REGAN PERKINS is Professor Emeritus of English Language and Literature at Eastern Michigan University. She is coauthor of This Land Is Our Land: A Guide to Multicultural Literature for Children and Young Adults (Greenwood, 1994) and Dictionary of American Children's Fiction, 1990-1994 (Greenwood, 1996), plus a number of other critical reference books and poetry anthologies. She has published many articles in professional journals and reference books.