The Storyteller's Sourcebook: A Subject, Title and Motif Index to Folklore Collections for Children (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Storyteller's Sourcebook: A Subject, Title and Motif Index to Folklore Collections for Children John Cech MacDonald, Margaret Read . The Storyteller's Sourcebook: A Subject, Title and Motif Index to Folklore Collections for Children. Detroit: Gale Research/Neal-Schuman, 1982. The Storyteller's Sourcebook is a timely reference work. The best known indexes of fairy and folk tales, myth, and legend are either outdated or have not been constructed with an eye to providing a specific focus on material that has either been adopted by or created especially for children. Many editions of primary works in this field are out of print or have been superseded by more recent collections or Single volumes—particularly picture book versions of folk material, an area of publishing for children that has expanded dramatically in recent years. The Sourcebook catches us up. MacDonald's volume also serves the contemporary "storyteller" in other, quite useful, ways. The Sourcebook, she says, is "specifically designed for quick and easy access by the teacher or librarian who wants to locate (1) tales about a given subject, (2) the location of a specific tale title in collections, (3) tales from an ethnic or geographical area, (4) variants of a specific tale." Thus, in addition to her motif index, there are indexes for these purposes—all of which gives this volume a scope that is not found in other indexes. By her own admission, MacDonald is not attempting to trace motifs as thoroughly as Stith Thompson (whose method of classification she has borrowed with some modifications;) to do so would double or triple the length of the motif index section, thus negating the functional immediacy and cost advantage of her one-volume version. The appearance of the Sourcebook testifies to the resurgence of interest in storytelling within the last decade or so, as a part of the larger concern with the whole of the oral tradition and its vital affects on culture. But MacDonald intends her book for a different kind of storyteller than the traditional teller of tales. Hers is a studious teller, one who approaches the finding of a story like term paper research. "When learning a new tale, storytellers like to examine and compare many variants before deciding on the particular form to use," Dr. MacDonald notes in her Preface. Nothing could be further from the way stories are carried through time by the oral tradition. Given that tradition, I wonder about MacDonald excluding "tales that are the invention of an author" when the stories are so universally known as to be a part of our folklore. Take the most famous tales of Hans Christian Andersen, for example. A bolder conception of possibilities might have led MacDonald away from the rigidities of genre and toward a more accurate view of our contemporary folklore and the stories that are a part of it. Despite my reservations about several of Dr. MacDonald's assumptions concerning folklore and the oral tradition, I would certainly recommend this book. Dr. MacDonald's scholarship is very useful, and the Sourcebook is surely a bargain for what it provides. It has a place in any children's library, especially ones where there are active storytelling programs and communinty interest in preserving this most ancient of the human arts. [End Page 27] John Cech University of Florida Copyright © 1983 Children's Literature Association