The mythic legacy of the Scandinavians includes a cycle of stories filled with magnificent images from pre-Christian Europe. Gods, humans, and monstrous beasts engage in prodigious drinking bouts, contests of strength, greedy schemes for gold, and lusty encounters. The Norse pantheon includes Odin, the wisest and most fearsome of the gods; Thor, the thundering powerhouse; and the exquisite, magic-wielding Freyja. Their loves, wars, and adventures take us through worlds both mortal and divine, culminating in a blazing doomsday for gods and humans alike. These stories bear witness to the courage, passion, and boundless spirit that were hallmarks of the Norse world.“Kevin Crossley-Holland retells the Norse myths in clear, attractive prose . . . An excellent introduction, notes, and a glossary provide mythological and historical backgrounds and suggest parallels with myths in other parts of the world.”–The Denver Post

    Here you will find Shangri-La and El Dorado; Utopia and Middle Earth; Wonderland and Freedonia. Here too are Jurassic Park, Salman Rushdie's Sea of Stories, and the fabulous world of Harry Potter. The history and behavior of the inhabitants of these lands are described in loving detail, and are supplemented by more than 200 maps and illustrations that depict the lay of the land in a host of elsewheres. A must-have for the library of every dedicated reader, fantasy fan, or passionate browser, Dictionary is a witty and acute guide for any armchair traveler's journey into the landscape of the imagination.

    This is a delightful reading of the favorite Italian Christmas story about an eccentric old woman and her never-ending search for the Baby King.

    The gingerbread man outruns everybody, until he meets the quick-witted fox.

    The lion awakens with a roar, but he lets the mouse go free. In gratitude, the mouse promises to help the lion if he is ever in need. The lion laughs at the very idea, but sometimes even a little mouse can be strong, and even a lion can be helpless. Bernadette Watts has created an appealing jungle setting for her simple retelling of a favorite Aesop fable.

    Taken from the records of the Federal Writers' Project of the 1930s, these interviews with one-time Virginia slaves provide a clear window into what it was like to be enslaved in the antebellum American South.

    A rider on a magnificent animal comes to him and says: "This animal is called the Sacred Dog. He can do many things your dogs can do and also more...He is as the wind: gentle but sometimes frightening." The clouds close and suddenly one by one countless Sacred Dogs course down from the sky. And so the courage of one determined boy is rewarded by the Great Spirit: The horse, or Sacred Dog, is given to his tribe.

    The original document, a journal kept by Anne Hughes at the end of the 18th century of her day to day life near Chepstow in Monmouthshire, is thought to have passed down to Jeanne Preston, who transcribed, edited or restored it so that it took on its current form.

    Because of the love of Prince Pazzo of the Dolomites for Princess Lucia of the Moon, the black peaks of the Dolomite mountains are changed to glimmering white, blue, pink, and yellow.

    

    Walker amassed during his eighteen years at Pine Ridge Reservation.

    Interspersed with drawings by Georgina Beier of Yoruba motifs and collected and translated by authors and artists long-familiar with Yoruba culture, the myths are compiled and introduced here by Ulli Beier, who himself holds two Yoruba chieftaincy titles. Some are creation myths: these explain the division of the original God into the many orisha, or gods, and the development of their various functions. In the folk- or trickster-tales the orisha often assume different personalities whose actions and their consequences reveal the Yoruba wisdom and customs. This book makes the myths of an orally transmitted religion available as literature to Nigerian school children, who are often unfamiliar with their traditional mythology. It will also strengthen English interest in original African literature.

    191 pp. . Harry N AbramsVery good line illustrations by Brian Froud, some full page. Original fairy tale in which a boy meets Jack-of-the-Beanstalk and Jack-the-Giant-Killer.

    Book by Haining, Peter

    

    Morgan collected 20 tales that exemplify the best of this tradition. Some are scary, some are humorous. Some teach moral values. There's the story of Peddler Paul, who witnessed the digging of his own grave but was saved by a friendly spirit. There's the lovely Louise, who taunted male students at a local college. All the gothic machinery of traditional ghost lore is found here.

    The design is less successful than the text selection. In fact, the book looks rather like an encyclopedia, and important figures that appear in the double-page illustrations often disappear into the gutter. Still, since the anthology's aim is comprehensiveness rather than entertainment, the book works, and it will be useful to young people trying to understand or compare a culture through its stories.

    

    Active, witty, brave, and resourceful, these girls and young women can fight and hunt, defeat giants, answer riddles, outwit the Devil, and rescue friends and family from all sorts of dangers and evil spells. These stories and many others like them were gathered by scholars from all the countries of Europe, but are usually left out of the popular collections of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when women were supposed to be beautiful, innocent, and passive.

    He lived several years ago and he served as a religious teacher, Moslem priest or judge as the occasion demanded. In spite of these exalted duties he was as human as any man. He could be wise and he could be foolish, and he was always able to laugh at himself. Over the years a collection of stories grew up around this man, and today there is scarcely a Turk alive who doesn't know dozens of them by heart. Barbara Walker has put together only a sampling of the hundreds of Hoca tales that exist. She has captured in English the same directness typical of a Turkish storyteller as he relates one of the well-known, well-loved stories of the wisdom or foolishness of Nasreddin Hoca.

    The author skillfully captures the essence of the golem and examines its aftermath objectively. Features a dramatized adaptation of the documented adventures of the golem and includes a comprehensive overview of Jewish mysticism, black magic, demonology, miracles and science, plus a summary of other golems in Jewish history. Read it for pleasure as well as perspective.

    Thirty-two of the world's best-loved fairy tales, including the The Emperor's New Clothes, The Frog Prince, Gone is Gone, The Sun and the Wind, and The Bremen Town Musicians.

    Features tales and descriptions of the American plains including the states - Nebraska, Oklahoma and Iowa.