Tales Alive!: Ten Multicultural Folktales With Activities (Williamson Tales Alive Books)

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Summary: Folktales for Telling and Learning
Review: Tales Alive! is a wonderfully written book of folktales from around the world. The reteller, Susan Milford, does a great job of incorporating the new vocabulary, or the language specific to that culture, into the story in a way readers can understand it. The stories are unique and are not the ones you've heard over and over. The reader will want to share these tales with others, or perhaps even tell them to others. The activities are helpful for understanding the language and the culture, and help the reader connect further with the text. The paintings by Michael A. Donato are unique and interesting, and the activity illustrations by Michael Kline are worth noting as well.

Rating:
Summary: Great for children to explore tales from different countries
Review: This book contains 10 multicultural folktales from different countries. It is a great way for children to experience different cultures. Great book to use in the classrooms, or to make use of it during family nights. Each folktale has its own activity which brings the tale alive

Rating:
Summary: Lovely book
Review: This book is a great addition to my home library. All the Williamson "Tales Alive" books are great, and the only reason this loses a star, (I'd have given it 4.5 stars if I could), is really personal preference as I like the "Shimmering Sky" one in this series even more. I felt it was a pity that there was no Polynesian story in this collection, but then it did have an Australian one, which is at least close, and when you have to limit a book to ten stories a lot of regions will miss out. The stories are well chosen. easy to read out loud, and the activities are set out in a clear format. Including a few more challenging activities would have been good, but as with her other books Milord's activities are readily adaptable, and the cross-curricular range of material is good. The pictures are very rich and intense, suiting the stories. All in all a worthwhile buy and one of my favourite books.