Touch Magic

This book will touch on deep and meaningful experiences that you have had while reading as a child and reading to children. By reading those perspectives organized into a series of short essays, you will better be able to read and enjoy the classic tales and bring the most meaning to them for yourself and others. Although I spend a great deal of time thinking about children's literature, this book greatly extended by ability to conceptualize the context for benefiting from these stories.Ms. Yolen begins strongly by pointing out many of the most important distinctions between oral and written literature. Most of our classic children's stories began in the former, and have been migrating into the latter. The story teller plays a great role in the oral tradition, by adjusting the way the story is told to fit the audience. As parents, I think we all do this instinctively with young children, but gradually abdicate that role as the children learn to read silently to themselves. As story tellers, we can help point out the interesting and challenging parts of the stories. In so doing, we increase the likelihood that the child will learn more about what it means to be human.Many people are concerned because classic folk tales, like Little Red Riding Hood, have many layers of meaning and can be interpreted in some pretty fightening ways. Ms. Yolen cites research showing that children actually like the punishments to be extreme in such stories, as a reflection of their sense of justice. But when should we be able to treat the outsider harshly? Stories like Rumplestiltskin nicely raise that issue. Whenever I review children's books, I try to point out these opportunities for exploring moral issues. One of the strengths of the folk tales is that they are full of moral issues, and questions of choice. For example, even when you take on the powers of magic, there is often a price to be paid.At another level, these stories capture parts of ourselves. By focusing in an imaginary world, they allow us to concentrate on that little sliver of ourselves. For example, anyone reading Peter Pan will remember sometimes feeling like Wendy and wanting to grow up, and sometimes feeling like Peter Pan and never wanting to grow up. By being poised with a choice on that ambivalence, a person can make a more successful determination about growing up and in what ways. No child would sit still for such a discussion without Barrie's powerful story.I was also impressed by the argument that we have many concepts that adults do not usually discuss in public company, like death, good, evil, God, and love. The folk and fairy tales are full of such subjects, and the "disbelief" that we suspend helps make us comfortable with dealing in these semi-taboo subjects. One of the best arguments in the essays is that by going through Alice's Looking Glass these stories must be very true about human nature, or we will reject them. They will simply be too remote and disconnecte

Jane Yolen offers strong reasons for the absolute need children have for stories and fairy tales, in their glory as well as their gore. In brilliant, almost poetic prose, she lends perspective and personal insight into the food for our souls these stories provide. She shares a particularly powerful example from her own childhood, a book by E. Nesbit, THE POWER OF THE AMULET. As a Jewish child in New York City, reading this book in about 1946, she was completely drawn into the fantasy world created. Only as a young adult, upon re-reading years later, did she confront the anti-Semitic bias in the story. Her point is well-taken, that those themes that an adult considers "ugly," are not what a child who lives in fantasy will take from a story. Her other essays face head-on the objections that many have to the old tales, and she champions them in their original form. In the wake of the uproar created by the Harry Potter books, her essays are well worth considering. We are, as she says, in danger of denying our children their own humanity when we brush aside the many gems of folk and fairy lore.

Yolen offers a strong collection of essays on children, stories, fantasy, and folklore in this new edition of Touch Magic. Yolen is one of the greatest forces in children's literature and folklore today. She explores the reasons why fantasy and folklore literature is important for children to read and hear. The power of story in individuals and in our cultures is emphasized in each essay. Yolen explains that stories link us to our past and future, helping all of us understand who we are and improve our interaction with the world. For anyone who wants to understand or explain why fantasy and folklore is important for children and adults, this book is a must read.

This book is an absolute must have for anyone concerned with literature and the way we pass on culture to our children. These essays, first published in 1981 (except for the last six, which have been added to this expanded edition) all deal with the importance of fairy tales and folktales to today's society: the way they teach morals, give us a platform to view the world, show us bravery and loyalty and love. As Yolen says, "... without tales and stories and books is to lose humanity's past, is to have no star map for the future." Never before have I heard the case for folk literature's preservation so succintly, so vividly, and so earnestly. Yolen deserves heaps of awards for this gem of a book. Highly, highly, highly recommended!

Yolen and August House share a newly expanded version of this wonderful book including six new essays. In the book, Yolen offers her insights into children's literature, fairy tales, folklore, and storytelling. Her book is a must-read for anyone who loves stories, children, and folklore. Many children today never hear fairy tales beyond the cinematic offerings of Disney. Yolen explains why children (and adults) need to hear these stories to increase their understanding of themselves and their world.