Folk­tales are sto­ries that grew out of the lives and imag­i­na­tions of the peo­ple—or folk. These sto­ries are en­joyed by chil­dren about age three and up. Some peo­ple use the terms folk­tale and fairy tale in­ter­change­ably. You may find that some of these tales have no fairies or mag­ic char­ac­ters in them, there is a brief list­ing of some of the most promi­nent kinds of folk­tales.

Cu­mu­la­tive. The tale us­es rep­e­ti­tion ac­cu­mu­la­tion and rhythm to make a sto­ry out of the barest of plots. But its hu­mour, sim­plic­i­ty and rhythm eas­i­ly ap­peal to chil­dren ages three to five years. “The Gin­ger­bread Man” is a sure­fire win­ner for this group.

Hu­mor­ous: This cat­e­go­ry fo­cus­es on a char­ac­ter who is very stu­pid and makes fun­ny mis­takes. These tales are known as drolls and numb­skulls. They have great ap­peal as they pro­voke laugh­ter.

Reynold Bassant

Then comes the Beast, Mag­ic, Pourquoi and Re­al­is­tic. The Beast typ­i­fies talk­ing an­i­mals–as in “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” With the Mag­ic Tales, there is the el­e­ment of mag­ic, fairies, elves, witch­es, ma­gi­cians. “Al­addin and the Won­der­ful Lamp” stands out in this type.

The Pourquoi group of sto­ries—ask the ques­tions: Why (Pourquoi, French). An ex­am­ple of a pourquoi tale is “Why the Sun and Moon live in the Sky”

And Fi­nal­ly, Re­al­is­tic. In these tales, the set­ting, char­ac­ters and plot are re­al—there is no mag­ic in these. A good ex­am­ple is “The Hero of Bre­men”.

Goldilocks And The Three Bears

Let us move on to a sam­pling of some of the sto­ries which would help in­di­cate that apart from the Eu­ro­cen­tric and “white” cre­ators/writ­ers of sto­ries, there has been and still en­dur­ing a grow­ing breed of writ­ers who have been writ­ing their own sto­ries from their dis­parate lo­ca­tions across the globe. As long as there are peo­ple writ­ing sto­ries—we ARE, be­cause they ARE! And their undy­ing sto­ries. In all hu­mil­i­ty, I sub­mit that BOOKS LIFT MANKIND (BLM).

I know of no bet­ter way to fight the creep­ing bleak­ness of the soul than to nur­ture it with the hope of those who push back against the dark­ness—with books that would give chil­dren of the world sto­ries that would lift them. Not make them kneel.

So, I give you these books list­ed be­low to prove to you that de­spite the chaos and the killing, thou­sands of us in the di­as­po­ra have been writ­ing our own sto­ries to share with the world. So, BOOKS LIFT MANKIND. I don’t have to go down on my knee. I will per­se­vere to stand my ground.

Here is a list of some books from the di­as­po­ra:

Why Mos­qui­toes Buzz in Peo­ple’s Ears. (Leo and Di­ane Dil­lon)–Kenya

The Ko­re­an Cin­derel­la (Ruth Heller)–Ko­rea

Ananse and the Lizard (Pat Cum­mings)–Ghana

The Li­on’s Whiskers (Nan­cy R Day)—Ethiopia

The Girl Who Spun Gold (Les and Dion Dil­lon)–West In­di­an

Favourite Fairy Tales told in In­dia (Vir­ginia Hol­land)–In­dia

Two of Every­thing: A Chi­nese Folk­tale (Lily Hoy Tong)—Chi­na

A Wave in Her Pock­et Sto­ries from Trinidad (Lynn Joseph)–Trinidad

Fool­ish Rab­bit’s Big Mis­take (Rafe Mar­tin)–In­dia

Subi­ra Subi­ra (Tolol­wa Mol­lel)—Tan­za­nia

Not One Damsel in Dis­tress: World Folk Tales for Strong Girls (Jane Yolen)– World

Just keep on read­ing and you will re­lease the mag­ic in books. They would make you burst in­to laugh­ter or tears, won­der or wor­ry. One source said they are brain-boost­ing, uni­verse-ex­plor­ing, time-shift­ing bun­dles of end­less pos­si­bil­i­ty.

Get on the band­wag­on and sup­port BOOKS LIFT MANKIND. Here are a few of those who have come aboard: Kenya, Ko­rea, Ghana, Ethiopia, Caribbean, In­dia, Tan­za­nia, Trinidad and To­ba­go, the world.

Fos­ter recre­ation­al read­ing by your chil­dren as an en­joy­able ex­pe­ri­ence. When chil­dren would have read at least ten books, you could have the piz­za de­liv­ered. When we com­plain about the in­va­sion of books from so-called “eu­ro-cen­tric” col­lec­tive, we show that we are not strong enough to counter our no­tions, by get­ting down to writ­ing our own sto­ries. We al­ways look for scape­goats. Shake­speare put it so con­vinc­ing­ly well in “Julius Cae­sar” when he said: “The fault, dear Bru­tus lies not in our stars, but in our­selves.”

Be­gin writ­ing your own sto­ries. Help cre­ate the lega­cy about how the “sa­van­nah grass” is not about mar­i­jua­na but about feel­ing the in­fec­tious pul­sa­tion vibes of Car­ni­val.