Grandfather Tales

When I was a camper at Camp Yonahnoka in Linville, NC, Richard Chase, the author of GRANDFATHER TALES and THE JACK TALES, would visit the camp and tell Jack tales to the campers from time to time. And always in that wonderful dialect he tries fairly successfully to capture in his books. He also introduced us to some early Blue Ridge Mountain folk toys - the "gee-haw whimmydiddle" being my favorite. It was a stick with notches cut into it and a simple two-bladed propeller afixed to the end with a small nail. When you rubbed the stick across the notches and said "Gee!", the propeller would spin to the left; when you called out "Haw!", the propeller would change course and spin to the right. The trick was to hold the rubbing stick in your left hand in such a way that when your index finger was in front of the stick when it rubbed the notches, the propeller would spin to the left; when you turned your wrist slightly so that the the thumb and not the index finger was behind the stick as it rubbed the whimmydiddle, it would spin to the right. Chase showed my 10 year old self the secret while I sat on his lap during a bunkhouse cookout. When I became a camp counselor, I'd read half a story a night aloud to my campers at bedtime. (In my best Richard Chase voice, of course.) No finishing the story the next night unless they behaved themselves the rest of the evening. It always worked because they loved the stories.

Returned memories of my childhood which I can now pass to my grandchildren for some fun reading together.

In my language arts class, we started the folklore unit. My teacher read us this book to give us examples of folklore tales, and we had a lot of fun. We took a 3 page test on this book and we also took notes. This book brought loads of laughter to us, especially when my teacher acted out the stories with an accent and all. Thanks so much for putting the Appalachian hertiage in writing!

25 oral tradition folktales with their roots in English mummers and mythology. Even the "Lear" story appears under the title 'Like Meat Loves Salt' These are stories written to be read out loud and help to enchant with the wonderful tradition of spoken folktales. There is also a collection of JACK TALES by the same author. This is the same boy of Jack & The Beanstalk fame. He has 17 other tales about him! Fantastic!

I have used this book for years in elementary classrooms, and with my own children and grandchildren. A must for any classroom (grades 1-8). Robert B. Cooter, Jr., Asst. Supt., Dallas Reading Plan, Dallas, Texas.