Five Minute Tales: More Stories to Read and Tell When Time is Short

by Margaret Read MacDonald

Another great storytelling resource from award-winning author, Margaret Read MacDonald.
When Margaret Read MacDonald published her book, Three-Minute Tales in 2004, it received a warm reception from teachers, youth leaders, clergy, and public speakers, all with an insatiable need for positive, pithy stories to fill out brief amounts of presentation time. Now MacDonald is back with more stories that can stretch anywhere from one to five minutes in length, encourage audience participation, and can be adapted for a wide range of settings. These riddles, fables, origin stories, scary stories, trickster tales, and more come from Thailand, the Republic of Georgia, Mexico, Japan, Brazil, Indonesia, Korea, Zambia, Hungary, China, Egypt, the Ukraine, India, Russia, Paraguay, and the Mayan, Jewish, native American, Basque, and Africa-American traditions. These multicultural fables encourage fairness, responsibility and trustworthiness. Award-winning author, Margaret Read MacDonald has written multiple storytelling resource books. Five Minute Tales combines public speaking with world folktales and is a great way to get your students and children to participate in the oral tradition of storytelling.

Genres: Childrens

Paperback

First published July 24, 2007

About the author

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Biography
Dr. Margaret Read MacDonald travels the world telling stories....always on the lookout for more great folktales to share. She shapes these found stories into tellable tales which anyone can share with ease. Filling her folktale collections with these delightful tales, she creates perfect read alouds for you and your family. MRM wants everyone to experience the joy of a beautifully told tale. She hopes you will read them a few times...then put down the book...put down the electronic device...and just TELL the story to your children!

Some of her favorite folktales she expands into picture books...hopefully with delightfully readable language while will roll right out of your mouth. Share them with your children and then....act the tales out! Revisit the tales by TELLING them! At bedtime. While on the road. Fill your pockets with great stories to share wherever you go.

Joining her Folklore Ph.D. with her 30 plus years as a children's librarian, Margaret brings folktales to life in playful, lilting language which should delight both reader and listener.

See her performance schedule at: www.margaretreadmaconald.com

Reviews

[Julie Tomek · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is filled with many different tales from many different parts of the world. Participation tales, from Brazil, Russia and Thailand; Animal Tales, from Mayan, Lao; Origin Stories, from Republic of Georgia, Canada; Tiny Tales, from Samaria; Riddle Tales, from Latvia; Romances, from Indonesia; Strange and Stranger, from Zambia; Trickery, from Hungary and Japan; Lesson Learned, from Egypt, India; just to name a small sample of the 48 stories told within the pages.

It would be a good little source to have for any storyteller. I personally liked how the stories are so diverse but also they are stories that are unique, not typically found in other storytelling resources.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading the stories, and I think they would be good ones to tell when you're trying to kill a few minutes somewhere or (in some cases) need a bedtime story. Some would be easier to memorize than others, however. But I can attest that the Monkeys in the Rain story--I call it the Brazilian monkey story--works very well for use in a library story time!

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good Guessing Stories:
The Little Red House
The Stolen Boat

Magic:
The Magic Canoe

[Lillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent resource for global stories.

[Hafidha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting stories. Good variety. Didn't like them all equally but there are some really excellent stories in here.

[Renee Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some I really liked; some not so much.