Noodlehead Stories

Since we already owned "How & Why Stories," and "Through the Grapevine, World Tales Kids Can Read & Tell," we knew we had to get this one too. We anticipated that this collection would be a real treat and it is!My kids always ask where this book is; someone always has it off the shelf. These stories keep my children busy for hours. They read to themselves, to each other, and then they tell them. These stories made them roar with laughter. A perfect humorous compilation of Folk Tales for children.In the beginning there is a world map to illustrate where these stories originate. At the end they offer General Tips for Telling Stories. These tips are the next best thing to having Hamilton & Weiss in person to do the coaching. They even offer Follow-up Activities to expand the lesson plan or teaching possibilities this book has to offer.

I really enjoyed reading all the stories in this book. The introduction defining what a noodlehead is is a great way to begin the book. Reading each story makes you laugh and realize that you too sometimes do noodlehead things. My favorite story was "Next Time I'll Know What To Do" which is about a boy whose mother has him go out and get a job. So he goes off and finds a job. After his first day of work he earns a coin. Being so proud of himself he shows everyone on his way home, unfortunately he drops it the water while crossing a bridge. His mother, disappointed, tells him he should have put it in his pocket. So the next day he received two slabs of butter for working. On his way home he put it in his pocket, like his mother said but by the time he made it home the butter had melted. This continues on each day, somehow losing what he earned by bringing it home the way his mother had told him. Now anyone with common sense would know that the butter would melt but Jack was following his mother's instructions. This continues on until he receives two bags of gold because he made the rich man laugh by trying to carry his donkey over his shoulder because that was what his mother had told him to do, onlyshe was referring to carrying the meat over his shoulder. This story was fun to read, along all the others. Each story comes with great little illustrations that represent the characters in the story. At the end of each story there are tips for ways to tell the story along with a little added information about the story. Also at the end of the book there is a section describing great techniques for story telling as well as follow up activities to do after you've read the story, such as creating a new stories from a few characters, each from different stories. Each story in this book is from a different country, offering us a little cultural information as well. I highly recommend this book, it can be fun for children of all ages.

This book really spoke to the children in my classroom. They all enjoyed hearing stories about the archtypal fool, and it paved the way for discussions on our treatment of others, since we, too, are often "the fool." Hamilton and Weiss have a great storytelling style: it's easy to read AND easy to tell. The illustrations are absolutely wonderful, too. I think other teachers, librarians, parents, etc. would all enjoy sharing this book with their children.

What a fun collection! My kids and I laughed a lot while reading these stories. I like the way the authors never use words like "stupid" or "dumb" and emphasize that the stories are told in the spirit of laughing at the `noodlehead' in all of us. Even though the stories are all about fools, there is a great variety to the kinds of tales. I highly recommend this book.