Sitting at the Feet of the Past

Must a folktale be connected to its culture? Can a tale with universal applications be transmitted from one culture to another without loss? Does a teller from one culture have the ability--or even the right--to relate a tale from another culture? What happens to a tale when it leaves the oral and adult arenas and appears in print for children? Is it legitimate for a reteller to create variants to suit a child audience?

Children's literature is today the major conduit for folklore, and professionals in the field must consider these questions. Editors Gary Schmidt and Donald Hettinga have brought together twenty-three writers of children's literature, illustrators, storytellers, and literary critics, who explore the issues and offer their experiences and views. The scope of the volume is the North American folktale, a rich amalgam of four major distinct traditions: the Native American folktale, the African American folktale, the retold Western European folktale, and the American tall tale. Each tradition is separately presented with an introductory survey and a selection of essays by the writers and critics. This focused collection will be valuable to scholars and professions in folklore, anthropology, American literature, and children's literature and useful also as a text in courses on children's literature and folklore.

GARY D. SCHMIDT is Associate Professor of English at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has published books on children's writers Robert McCloskey and Hugh Lofting as well as works on rhetoric and writing and numerous journal articles on his special areas of interests, including children's literature, rhetoric and linguistics, and medieval literature. He was coeditor, with Charlotte F. Otten, of The Voice of the Narrator in Children's Literature (Greenwood Press, 1989).

DONALD R. HETTINGA is Professor of English at Calvin College, specializing in children's literature, American literature, journalism, and writing. He is the co-author of In the World: Reading and Writing as a Christian, and his essays have appeared in reference books and anthologies, scholarly journals, and popular periodicals.