Free From Cover to Cover by Kathleen T. Horning

look closely at the language that is used in any tale you evaluate. Does the text read well aloud? What words contribute to the quality Dr. Hearne describes as “robust sound”? Do you notice elements that give the text a flavor of oral storytelling, such as colloquial speech or occasional use of second person or questions? Do you notice a repetition of any catch phrases, such as the Three Bears’ observation “Someone has been sitting in my chair”?
    The oral origins of the tale will also dictate aspects of plot and character. Since these tales move along quickly, with little time to establish setting and character motivations, we expect rapid transitions and concentrated action. The text itself might seem choppy and disjointed if the author doesn’t use vivid language or establish patterns through repetition. Consider, for example, how The Three Bears might read without its richly patterned language:
    Three bears decided to go for a walk while their porridge was cooling. While they were gone, a little girl named Goldilocks enteredtheir house. She tasted the porridge in the first two bowls and then ate all the porridge in the third one. She sat in the bears’ chairs and broke the smallest one. She went upstairs and tried out all the bears’ beds. She found the smallest one to be the most comfortable, and she fell asleep on it. She was still sleeping when the bears returned home. They noticed someone had been eating their porridge and sitting in their chairs. Then they went upstairs and noticed someone had been sleeping in their beds, too. The smallest bear cried out, “She’s still here!” That woke Goldilocks up and she jumped out the window and ran away. The three bears never saw her again.
    Given this basic bare-bones version, we can see how much the story depends on the use of repetition and pattern in the language that is used to retell it. In trying to determine the quality of a retelling, it can be helpful to think of the story in terms of its most basic plot outline, as I have done above with “The Three Bears.” This will make the reteller’s language stand out. How has the author used language to make the retelling engaging and easy to listen to? What descriptive phrases and actions are used to characterize the key players in the story? You will note, for example, that the three bears lose all their distinguishing characteristics when they are no longer described in terms of size or their connections to Goldilocks’s response to their individual chairs, beds, and bowls of porridge.
    ILLUSTRATIONS
    At the end of the twentieth century, we saw a tremendous increase in the publication of picture book versions of folktales for children, partly to meet the increasing demands for multicultural literature and partly to meet the increasing demands from artists who use picture books as a means of showcasing their art. It was not unusual, for example, to see more than onepicture book version of the same story published in any given year. While there have been fewer picture book folktales published since 2000, they continue to be a mainstay of children’s literature.
    Because traditional literature is by its nature generally devoid of extensive description, these stories are ripe for countless illustrative treatments by artists with distinctive and diverse styles. Four picture book versions of “Hansel and Gretel” published within a five-year period, for example, contain remarkably similar texts—all were taken from faithful English translations of the story as it appeared in the Brothers Grimm’s 1812 Children’s and Household Tales . But in the hands of four different illustrators, no two versions look alike.
    Austrian artist Lisbeth Zwerger emphasizes the isolation and abandonment of Hansel and Gretel by making the two solitary children the focal point of every illustration. Very little attention is given to background details of any kind, and often we see only their two figures set against a backdrop