Free From Cover to Cover by Kathleen T. Horning Page B

provide documentation and source notes for each story included in the collection.
    Author Alvin Schwartz sets the standard for this sort of documentation in his collections of folklore aimed at children. Even in his simplest books, such as the beginning reader In a Dark, Dark Room, and Other Scary Stories , he includes source notes titled “Where the Stories Come From” that are aimed at the beginning readers themselves. His popular collections of frightening folklore for older children include extensive notes; for the twenty-nine stories included in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark , for example, Schwartz provides what Betsy Hearne has referred to as “model source notes.” To research and document the stories he retold, he consulted eighty-four print sources and more than a dozen informants (both children and adults who shared their scary stories with him). In hisnotes he acknowledges the sources he used, discusses variants, and tells how he arrived at the final version that appears in his book.
    ORGANIZATION
    Schwartz also organizes the stories into sections by type: jump stories, ghost stories, scary things, urban legends, and humorous stories. Each section is introduced with a one-or two-sentence description of the story type, and at the end of the book more extensive notes give further background about each of the tale types, including such things as various techniques for telling a jump tale and the current social environment that makes urban legends appealing.
    Other compilers have chosen to organize collections by places or cultures of origin, or by subject. When you evaluate a collection of traditional tales, think about how it is organized. Will the organization assist readers who may be looking for just one or two particular tales? Will it invite readers to approach the collected stories as one continuous narrative? Does the author provide a written introduction to the stories in each section that explains how the part is distinctive and how it relates to the collection as a whole? What is the range of tale types within each section, as well as the range of tales in the entire book?
    LITERARY FOLKTALES
    These tales are not part of traditional literature, but I will mention them here because they are often confused with traditional tales. Rather than originating within a particular culture’s oral storytelling tradition, a literary folktale is written by a known author who uses the characteristics we associate with folktales: concentrated action, stock characters, elements of fantasy, and simple themes. Hans Christian Andersen and Oscar Wilde are perhaps the best-known authors of this type of tale; however,many contemporary authors try their hands at this as well. They are often difficult to distinguish from true folktales, so be on the lookout for descriptive phrases, such as “an original tale,” in subtitles or flap copy. Also, check the CIP on the copyright page. The Library of Congress assigns the Dewey decimal number 398 to traditional literature, 290 to mythology, and [FIC] or [E] to literary folktales, although it is not always infallible in its classifications.
    FRACTURED FAIRY TALES
    Somewhere between true folktales and literary folktales fall fractured fairy tales , playful variants on familiar stories and characters. Many scholars cite James Thurber as the first American writer to fracture a tale, with “The Little Girl and the Wolf,” a send-up of “Little Red Riding Hood” that was published in The New Yorker in 1939. The term “fractured fairy tale” itself comes from a regular segment that was part of the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon series that ran from 1959 to 1964. Julie Cummins defines it as “A classic folk or fairy tale rewritten with tongue-in-cheek humor or as a spoof using twists and spins on the story’s features; text and visual references poke fun at the original, resulting in a witty, clever, and entertaining tale.”
    In children’s literature, Jon Scieszka and Lane