Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales - Virginia Hamilton
A spirited retelling of tales old and new.
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- Author:Virginia Hamilton
- # of pages: 114
- Publisher:Scholastic Inc.
- Original Publication Date: 01/01/1995
- Genre: Fiction - Folklore
- Paperback: $4.99
- Publisher's Recommended Reading Level: Ages 9-12
- Read Alone: 8-12
- Awards:Coretta Scott King Honor
Parents need to know
Families can talk about the different women in the stories. How are they connected? How are they different? Which ones do you admire most? Do any of them disappoint you?
Message
Social Behavior:
Consumerism:
Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco:
Violence
A number of fairy-tale animals are punished or killed. Death is matter-of-factly accepted in all the tales. People are frequently changed into animals or inanimate objects, and unhappy endings abound. The Devil appears as a character. Some supernatural t
Sex
Language
Common Sense says
What's the story?
Reviewed by Amy Brotman
Is it any good?
The oral history of African-American women has been passed on for centuries through spoken word, spirituals and lullabies, autobiographical musings, and nighttime tales. Hamilton has collected the best of these, presenting them in a beautiful book illustrated by intensely colorful paintings.
The comments that accompany the stories, explaining their history, colloquial language, and imagery, are as fascinating as the stories themselves, and contribute greatly to the sense of self a girl develops when reading these accounts. The final three stories, "Her True Tales," are oral histories of three African-American women. It is this chapter--when we meet real women speaking in their own voices--that brings the rest of the book together, giving perspective and context to the folklore and fairy tales. These heroines are real ones; their voices will be the sounds that carry on, that will echo in the hearts of young readers long after the last page is read.
Other choices
Virginia Hamilton also wrote The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales and The Bells of Christmas.
Parents and kids say



