How can you repay an extraordinary kindness if you don't know who's responsible? What will you do if the gift you made for someone special gets ruined? Would you accept an invitation from an impressive stranger?
Besides being enormously
entertaining and providing provocative real-life scenarios to contemplate in a safe setting, folktales teach values, positive traits, and cultural traditions, and can take your family on a trip without leaving home!
Rooted in worldwide oral traditions and easy to remember and share, folktales offer a wealth of benefits, such as rich vocabulary, reading comprehension skills like distinguishing between characters and following events in sequence, a
nd fabulous critical reading opportunities: "why would that character do that?!"
Holiday stories such as the ones featured below are part of the global folktale tradition. At this time of year, what better gift could we give our children than kindling their imaginations while helping them develop cultural literacy and language skills?
- Kathy Balch, BookTree Founder