Three-Minute Tales

by Margaret Read MacDonald

Recognized as Notable book for Global Society
Anyone who teaches, lead, or speaks in public has had the experience of needing to fill short amounts of time in order to hold the audience's attention. The challenge is familiar to Margaret Read MacDonald, who for thirty-five years told stories to preschoolers every week. Here are more than eighty simple, short, pithy tales for many holidays, museum tours, history or nature walks, public speaking, media appearances, school visits, curriculum boosters. These traditional tales come from China, west Africa, Mexico, Japan, Thailand, Turkey, Syria, Cuba, the Ukraine, India, eastern Europe, and the Jewish, native American, and African-American traditions.

Genres: Childrens, Fiction, Cultural, Fairy Tales, Folk Tales

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 25, 2004

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

[Caitlin Harmon]

Margaret MacDonald, provides 80 traditional tales from different world cultures in her book, Three Minute Tales Stories From Around the World to Tell When Time is Short. These traditional tales come from China, West Africa, Mexico, Japan, Thailand, Turkey, Syria, Cuba, the Ukraine, India, Eastern Europe, and the Jewish, Native American, and African-American traditions. MacDonald provides the time it takes to tell the tales, clever staging ideas, and organizes the tales in categories such as stories to tell on a walk, riddle tales, scary tales, participation tales, and much much more.

These folktales would be fantastic for the classroom. I believe in the classroom this book could be used for the following purposes: storytelling, brain breaks, wrap-ups, museum spiels, and nature walks. In the classroom students could prepare and rehearse one tale from the book for their classmates (paying special attention to pacing, characterization, and gestures). And students could be encouraged to write their own folktale following the elements the tales in the book contained.

[Michael Campana]

Three-Minute tales is a collection of about 80 short folktales and folksongs from different countries and cultures around the world, including the United States, Canada, First Nations (i.e. indigenous people of the Americas), Cuba, Mexico, France, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Greece, Norway, Russia, Turkey, Burma, China, Japan, India, Iran, Syria, Thailand, and also from Jewish cultural tradition. The stories and songs are organized into the following categories: tales to tell on a walk, tales to tell on a museum tour, tales for the youngest listeners, participation tales, short folktales for any age, riddle tales, humorous tales, scary tales, stories to think about, very tiny tales (under 30 seconds), and endless tales & tales to end the telling. The stories each have a notation for the approximate time it will take to tell the story aloud, and they are unaccompanied by illustrations except for the musical notation of the melody for those entries that are folksongs.

[JaNeal]

I am keeping this on a bookshelf for a couple of reasons. First, I love that it has suggestions for building a tour for museums. I can see that a storytelling docent position could be a lot of fun in the right context. Also, there are a handful of stories I want to hang onto:
The Tailor's Jacket (Jewish Folktale), 2 minutes
The Parrot and the Parson (European Folktale), 1 minute
The Fool at the Country Store (A True Story from Southern Indiana), 1 minute
The Well-Read Frog (Contemporary Anecdote), 1 1/2 minutes
Tossing Starfish (A Speaker' Anecdote), 1 minute

[Sarah Huff]

The story I focused on in the Three Minute Tales was an American Camplore called Herman the Worm. This tale was so cute! There were no pictures or illustrations in this book so I'm assuming you're just supposed to memorize the tale and repeat it by word of mouth. I'm going to tell this tale to my kids and other kids because it was cute and it even made me laugh while reading it. It doesn't hurt to be very dramatic with the story telling either.

[Cheryl]

Fabulous resource to fill those moments when kids need a quick story. Contains a chapter on interactive/participatory tales, great for Ks. Margaret Read MacDonald is the premiere collector of folklore.

[Yahya Han]

In this book, author collected short stories from India to Norway and author divided stories based on the places, where teachers or parents can read. You can find the short stories to read in classroom, school visits or museum tours.

[Ravi Narayanan]

Very nice collection of stories that could be told from 15 seconds to 3 minutes. A mouse scares a cat by saying "Bow Vow, Bow Vow" to save its kins - says the advantage of being bilingual - Good one.

[Dearborn Public Library Youth Services]

Great fillers for between longer stories or for quick class visits. You've got to memorize them for the best effect. Works for all ages.

[Anastasia Stacey]

helped to improve my story-telling skills a wee bit

[Kendra]

A great collection of short stories for children and larger audiences. I look forward to trying some of them out at my library.

[Jolyn]

Excellent short stories to start or end a class.

[Joy Lane]

good for incorporating into storytime

[Angela]

By taking these classic myths and stories out of their setting and shortening them, much was lost. Only a few kept the same impact in this telling.

[Keishua]

good collection. interactive storytelling or good for read out loud time. short short stories but that's a good thing.

[Helen]

This is a good book for storytellers. It includes timed stories for all types of occasions. Nice worldwide selections.