 The Snake's Tales |
The Snake's Tales"Way back in time there were no stories. Season after season, the earth turned from day to night to day. People worked and ate, slept and woke. But they didn't tell stories. Believe it or not, people simply didn't know what stories were!" How did stories begin? In The Snake's Tales, a little boy and a little girl go into the forest to pick fruit for the family's supper. On the way home, the children meet a strange snake. In return for the children's fruit, the snake tells them stories, the first stories in the world. I created this story to tell to school groups and indeed I'd told it hundreds of times before I wrote the book. The idea came from a Seneca tale called The Storytelling Stone in which a hunter sits on a stone and in return for game the hunter shoots, the stone tells him stories, the first stories of his people. Maybe sometime you will hear me tell the story and see how it differs from the book! Yumi Heo's charming illustrations capture the feeling and the details of the story very well. On every page, there are lots of little things to discover in her pictures. From Publisher's Weekly: Davol's folktale rhythm and simple imagery are just right for a tale about the origin of story. |
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