Illustrated Animal Tales from Asia: Books for Children & Sources for Storytellers
November 12, 2008-December 31, 2008
Location: Asia Collection
Children's books from Hamilton Library's Asia Collection and Juvenile Collection are on display. Colorful illustrations from twenty-three animal tales from Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Mongolia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam include a magpie and a grateful ant; a trickster rabbit and a crocodile; an ungrateful tiger; a sick caterpillar; the beckoning cat from Japan; two herons and an unwise tortoise; a persevering bear; befuddled monkeys; and more.
Two types of folktale indexes, tale-type and motif indexes, are featured in the last display case for "Finding Tales" both for comparative folklore research and for storytelling. Motifs are the smaller, salient elements within a tale. Included are Stith Thompson's revision of Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne's original classification The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography 1928, rev. 1961; Thompson's six-volume Motif Index of Folk Literature rev. ed. 1955-1958; Margaret MacDonald's The Storyteller's Sourcebook: A Subject, Title, and Motif Index to Folklore Collections for Children 1982; Hans-Jorg Uther's three-volume The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography 2004; and separate indexes for folktales from several Asian countries. A bibliography of research tools: "Selected Sources for Asian Folktale & Motif Research" was compiled for the exhibit. The exhibit was assembled by Linda Laurence with cultural and/or installation assistance from the following staff: Julie Lee, Alicia Yanagihara, Yi Lee, Etsuko Chopey, Daniel Kane and Kyle Sasaoka.
