Great Children's Stories, by Rand McNally - Traditional Literature Collection

I found this Traditional Literature Collection of stories and discovered myself going back into my childhood when my mother use to read stories of sly foxes, innocent little chickens, and house building pigs to me. I found this book and was overjoyed, because it instantly reminded me of how far in my reading journey I have gotten and where I came from. I found this book buried away with some other books that I didn’t remember having as a child, and realized that a friend at the time gifted me with this book for my fifth birthday party. Now, I am sure that I was not as overjoyed with this gift then, as I am today, but I am sure that her mother knew in the back of her mind that I would one day need this book, whether to bring back the memories of simpler times, or to write a reading response journal on (ha!). I have no idea where the gift giver or her mother are today, but “thank you” for enriching my literary library!

The collection Great Children’s Stories start off with an Introduction by Irene Hunt, who goes into great lengths as to how the stories came to be written down. She tells us that the original stories were “told orally” or “sung” to audiences. Over the years, a twist or exaggeration seems to have been added to the characters, events, problems, and solutions. I can see this in the story of The Three Little Pigs. This story does seem to add a little bit of “happiness” to the story, possibly veering away from the idea of death and pain. In this version, all three little pigs live (running from one blown down house to the next) and in the end, the pigs make the fire so hot in the chimney, so the wolf just decides not to go down it and leaves, never returning. Now, as an adult and having read many different versions and fractured-versions of The Three Little Pigs, I would wonder why the wolf gave up so easily. I mean, he went to all the trouble to blow down a straw house and a stick house, that to turn and walk away from a hot chimney does not seem to fit his character. I pause to wonder if this is the author’s way of making things less scary for children. To be honest, the thought that the wolf may just decide to come back any minute and eat the unsuspecting pigs would give me nightmares as a child. Besides, are the pigs supposed to stay in the brick house forever? That would be a sad and unhappy life, even from a pig’s point-of-view, I would think.

I found that some of the stories were “sing-song” in style (makes sense, due to the original versions probably being sung before an audience who may or may not have joined in) and repetitive. The Old Woman and Her Pig is a prime example of this. An old woman goes to the market (after finding a sixpence while sweeping the floor) and buys a pig (very cause and effect situation going on here). On the way home, she can not get the pig to get over the stile, so she asks the help of wayward travelers (a dog, a stick, fire, water, an ox, a butcher, a rope, a rat, a cat, and finally a cow) who all refuse help until the cat tells her he will help if she gives it a saucer of cream, from the cow. The story is repetitively added to and then works itself backwards until the old woman and her pig finally get home. That old woman does tend to be a bit bossy to those she meets on the road, however, and brutal as well. There is a lot of biting and beating requested on her part in order to get each wayward traveler to do her bidding. As an adult, I now pause to reflect that there may be a reason this old woman seemed to be living alone with now only a pig to keep her company. Maybe she is just too bossy to live with!

Often times a fox or a wolf are seen as creatures of evil and meanness. The story of The Travels of a Fox is an example. Here we have a fox who catches a bumblebee and puts it in a bag. He then leaves the bag with another person, who opens the bag and lets the bumblebee out. Therefore, the Fox takes the person’s pig. This happens throughout the story, with Fox taking something bigger and bigger each time, until he takes a little boy and plans on eating him for dinner. However, an older mother figure saves the little boy, replaces him in the bag with the house dog, and when Fox goes to open the bag the house dog eats Fox instead. I wonder if this story came about by ancient people who were growing tired of being taxed by their kings and government officials. They may have felt like the king was taxing them so much that eventually he would take their child. Perhaps the end, with the fox getting what he deserved, is what they wish would have happened to their “taxing government”.