Beauty and the Beast Storytellers

The Ghost Catcher: A Bengali Folktale wins Storytelling World Award
The Ghost Catcher received a 2009 Storytelling World Honor Award! Our latest picture book is available (spring 2008) from August House Publishers as part of their LittleFolk series. In this Bengali folktale, a generous barber uses his wits and his trusty mirror to outsmart some scary, but unintelligent ghosts. The beautiful illustrations are by Kristen Balouch who recently won the Ezra Jack Keats Award. Kirkus Reviews says "Balouch's bright, memorable illustrations create a fanciful Indian setting with crisp, colorful figures digitally placed on a fabric background for texture. Teamed with spirited and eminently tellable prose, they conjure up a colorful, magical land where cleverness can save the day."

Why Koala Has a Stumpy Tail, our retelling of a folktale from Australia, and The Well of Truth, a folktale from Egypt, are our latest addition to the Story Cove Line (see description below.) To watch the animated movies of the stories, which include our voices, go to Story Cove.

Priceless Gifts wins Storytelling World Award
Priceless Gifts received a 2008 Storytelling World Gold Award! Kirkus Reviews says, ""Storytellers Hamilton and Weiss invoke the exotic days of the spice trade in their retelling of a traditional Italian folktale. . . Kanzler's sumptuous artwork deftly conveys the grandiose tenor of this folktale. Regal red hues and other deep jewel tones dominate the illustrations, while visible brush strokes create the crackled effect of an aged painting, furthering the antique feeling of the text. Readers will enjoy discovering this gem of a folktale from long ago." This has been one of our favorite stories to tell for years. It's a compelling tale with a powerful message about what's truly valuable in our way too material world. The ending has a twist that is surprising, satisfying, and humorous. Children's Literature says, "Husband and wife storytellers Martha Hamilton and Mitch Weiss bring to life an Italian folktale set during the glory days of Italy's monopoly of the Spice Islands . . . Rich, jewel-toned illustrations laced with humor make this engaging tale a perfect introduction to studies of explorers and the spice trade, and will provoke lively discussions about gifts, especially the kind that money can't buy."

Story Cove: a series of Picture Books and animated movies from August House
Story Cove is a branch of August House Publishers. All Story Cove titles come from a variety of cultures and share simple, universal lessons and values. The 8x8 paperbacks, which retail individually for $3.95, are supported with lesson plans that match the NCTE national standards. These books are also sold as part of Story Cove Teacher Activity Packs that include: 7 copies of the Story Cove book; differentiated lesson plans for 4 grades; and a CD with the animated version of the story, read-along audio tracks, along with accompanying activities, projects, and games. We have five Story Cove titles thus far. Watch the animated movies by clicking on the titles below then scroll down and click on the book cover.
Why Koala Has a Stumpy Tail is an Australian folktale in which lazy Koala loses not only his long tail but also his good friend, Tree Kangaroo.
A Tale of Two Frogs, which was inspired by a Russian Folktale, tells of how two sister frogs fall into a pot of cream; one saves both of their lives by kicking so hard she turns the cream into butter.
Rooster's Night Out is a chain story from Cuba in which Sun helps Rooster to get cleaned up for Heron's party. As a sign of his gratitude, Rooster crows every morning to wake Sun up.
The Stolen Smell is a folktale from Peru in which a baker is so stingy that he wants to charge his neighbor just for smelling his baked goods. When he takes his case to court, the wise judge decides to teach the greedy man a well-deserved lesson.
Keep checking our site because we will have several new Story Cove titles in the future including The Well of Truth, a folk tale from Egypt and The Big Wide-Mouth Frog, a folk tale from the United States, already a favorite from our Throught the Grapevine: World Tales Kids Can Read and Tell.
(Note: Only individual titles are for sale on our site; go to Kaplan Early Learning Company to order the Teacher Activity Packs. Only two of our titles are available in the activity packs at this time.

Scared Witless: Thirteen Eerie Tales To Tell
If we ruled the world, children would be encouraged and given numerous opportunities to tell stories - folktales from various cultures, stories written by their favorite authors, and, of course, their own stories. This would be done formally and informally, to one person and in front of a group, in school and at home. Teaching children to tell stories helps them to find their own voices. It also creates excitement about reading and writing their own stories. When we work in classrooms teaching students to tell, teachers note that students are really excited about reading and telling more tales from our books. They love all kinds of stories - from silly to serious, from pourquoi tales that explain something peculiar about an animal or natural phenomenon to "noodlehead" stories about fools from which children, surprisingly, learn a great deal. But if we had to choose their most beloved genre of stories for telling, it would undoubtedly be scary tales. Stories such as "Tilly," "The Golden Arm," and "On a Dark and Stormy Night" from Stories in My Pocket: Tales Kids Can Tell have always been huge favorites in every classroom where we've taught student tellers.

It's never been easy to find scary stories that we feel are appropriate for the elementary classroom, so we decided to write our own collection. Kids will love entertaining their friends, family, and classmates with these jump tales and shaggy-dog stories. As with all the stories in our collections, these tales are tried and true - we've seen countless students tell them. They're not too gory or too scary and all have elements of humor. Kirkus Reviews calls them ". . . just right for inducing 'goosebumps, gasps and giggles' in susceptible audiences of any age."

The Hidden Feast: A Folktale from the American South
Our first picture book received lots of positive reviews! Booklist (American Library Association) says, "the smooth text is well shaped for read-alouds, as are the bright, clearly arranged paintings of the expressive, whimsically outfitted animals." Kirkus Reviews called it "fun for reading and telling" and Children's Literature says "The barnyard really swings in this Southern folktale." It is illustrated by Don Tate who captured the spirit of the story perfectly. Not only is it a pourquoi tale that explains why roosters scratch in the dirt, it also teaches the powerful lesson that one often needs to look below the surface to find the true value of something. Check out the free animated version and click on "Play the movie."

Keep checking back for information on new books because the kids keep us excited about retelling more folktales. Yes, we do have the best job in the world - as we toil away in our office retelling tales, it is with a picture in our minds of how the children's faces will look as we tell the tale - "storystoned" is the very apt word that we recently heard educator/storyteller Rosemary Vohs use to describe their slack-jawed, totally engaged faces and perfectly still bodies. If not that image, then it's the picture of a child telling the tale to a rapt audience of his/her peers. Well, others might argue that there are better jobs, but we're sure having fun!