Page 6, 9th December 1983
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A HANDSOME group of Faber paperbacks at £2.95 collects the legends and folk-tales that underlie our culture; tales that widen the scope and deepen the intensity of a child's imaginative life. The Faber Book of North American Legends is edited by Virginia Haviland and illustrated by Ann Strugnell. The Faber Book of Northern Folk-Tales and The Faber Book of Northern Legends are edited by Kevin Crossley-Holland and illustrated by Alan Howard.
Virginia Haviland is an American well known in the children's book world both in the USA and in this country. She is at once scholarly and lively and so full of enthusiasm that she carries one along with her interests and ideas.
Kevin Crossley-Holland's two books show the difference between folk-tales and legends. Of course the two overlap, but to this editor at least folk-tales are the stories handed down orally among the people of particular countries and cultures, whereas legends are, as it were, the foundation stones of particular cultures.
By "northern" he means a wide swathe of territory from Iceland, the Shetlands and Lapland to Scandinavia, England, Germany and Flanders.
The northern folk-tales, which are told here by several distinguished writers — among them Andrew Lang, Helen Waddell and Walter de la Mare — are short stories about individuals. with important characteristics and secret patterns that make psychological sense of all kinds of aspects of life and therefore teach children a great deal.
In the Legends, too, there is an excellent, useful foreword discussing the ideas and the history ur the early heroic legends.
All three are valuable books which would form an important .part of any family's book collection, especially where there are children. And school libraries, of course, should certainly have them.
Fifty Favourite Fairy Tales of Andrew Lang, chosen by Kathleen Lines (Bodley Head, £6.95), takes stories from all his Colour Fairy Books (the Blue Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, etc.), first published at the turn of the century and the basis of many children's folklore ever since.
Some of the stories are familiar, some obscure, ranging from Rapunzel and The Brave Little Tailor and Dick Whittington to stories I don't remember reading before, though I was brought up on Andrew Lang.
Margery Gill, whose unmistakable drawings will be familiar to anyone who has to do with children's books, has turned out a very large number of most attractive black and white drawings to go with the stories, and their realism, charm and flowing lines are very effective in giving them solidity and feeling.
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