Traditional or Folk Literature

The Frog Prince Continued by Jon Scieszka [folk]

The books the "sequal" to The Frog Prince.  The Prince felt that he was supposed to live happily ever after after the wedding but that was not the case. He always argued with his Princess.  He decided one day that he wants to be turned back into a frog and everything would get better.  He goes into the forest looking for a witch who would do the trick.  He is unsuccessful and realizes he loves his Princess.  At the end of the story they Prince and Princess both turn into frogs and live happily ever after.  Students in the classroom would write the second part to their favorite story. They could write another ending to this story.  They could predict what would happen when the Prince went into the forest as a journal and then repsond with whether or not they were correct and if they liked the ending.

The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by: Scieszka, Jon

This book has 9 fairy tales in it.  They are Chicken Licken, The Princess and the Bowling Ball, The Really Ugly Duckling, The Other Frog Prince, Little Red Running Shorts, Jack's Bean Problem, Cinderumpelstiltskin, The Tortoise and the Hair, and the Stinky Cheese Man.  All of the are another version of the traditional fairy tales.  This book is funny and it is a good tool for classroom management.  If they class is really rowdy it is a good way to get them calm to just read one of the stories.  A teacher could have have students choose their favorite fairy tale or traditional story and rewrite it.

Sleeping Ugly by: Jane Yolen [traditional]

Sleeping Ugly is about  very mean Princess.  She was gorgeous to all but she had to most horrible attitude.  One day she went into the forest and got lost.  When she found a fairy and was mean to the fairy and was demanding that she help her get back home.  Well the fairy took the Princess went to Jane, a very ugly young lady, house.  Jane was gorgeous on the inside.  The Princess was rude to both the fairy and Jane and they all ended up getting put to sleep until kissed by a prince.  One day a prince found the ladies sleeping in Jane's house and he began waking them up.  Before he could wake up the Princess he fell in love with Jane so the Princess remained sleep forever.  This book also has the tradtional story of The Sleeping Beauty, sleeping jokes, and facts about sleep.  This book is great for teaching children that it is important to treat all people with respect.  They can journal about a time they treated someone with respect.  They can discuss in small groups which version of the story they liked better. 

Rumpelstiltkin's Daughter by: Diane Stanley [tranditonal]

Stanley started the book off like tradtional story but instead of Rumpelstiltskin being vowed the first child of the farmers daughter he marries her.  Meredith, the farmer's daugheter, and the two escape from the palace and settle on a farm far from the king. They have a "sunny and clever" daughter, Hope, who travels to town to sell the golden coins spun by her father. The king finds out and captures her and brings her back to the palace to spin gold for him as her "mother" once did. Hope tricks the king that ends up helping the people of the kingdom and her appointment as prime minister. This books shows how is it important for people to be kind even to mean people.  This is a good book for the beginning of the school year when students are learning the class rules.  It could show how to use your head to get out of situations and how being nice is always better than being mean.  This book has quite a bit of action in it so I think it would be cool to give each student a line or sentence of the story and try to have them put the story in order before reading it and after and compare in a journal.


The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by: Jon Scieszka

The wolf in the story "The Three Little Pigs" never had a chance to tell his side of the story.  He decides to speak out in this book.  He claims that he is not the bad guy that he was made out to be.  He says he was making his grandma a cake and didn't have any sugar. He also says that he had a really bad cold.  When he went to his neighbors houses that were the pigs to ask for sugar he would sneeze and their house would fall.  He claims that after all the dust cleared to pigs were dead so he would eat them.  He says that by the time he got to the last house the cops came and picked him up. He says the reporters are who changed the story and made him seem like this bad guy but he isn't.  The children can see that there are two sides to every story and that is important to listen to their friends.  I think this is another little funny book to go over when going over fairy tales in the curriculm. 


The Giant and the Beanstalk by : Diane Stanley [traditional]

In this version of the traditional tale, a young giant chases Jack down the beanstalk to rescue his beloved hen and meets other Jacks from various nursery rhymes along the way. The name of the giant in this story is Otto. Otto is really nice not like other giants. Clara is his pet hen and all he wants is to get her back so he can play with her he climbs down the stalk to find "Jack". He encounters Jakes from other stories looking for his hen and eventually has a good ending. This is another book that would be good about not judging people and looking at the whole situation.  The children could add in other adventures that Otto would have to go through in his journey to Jack. You could break the class into groups and each group make up a story and then combine them to their own version of this book.