Slop!: A Welsh Folktale in Unknown Books?

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May 03, 2010 Ronyell rated it liked it

Shelves: environmentalism, read-in-2010, manners, fairy-tales-folktales, welsh-books, margaret-read-macdonald

This is the first folktale I have read from Wales and it is called “Slop! A Welsh Folktale” which is by Margaret Read MacDonald along with illustrations by Yvonne LeBrun Davis. This tale is about how an old couple learns about the importance of being good neighbors after they unknowingly throw their slop onto a tiny couple’s cottage. “Slop! A Welsh Folktale” is a cute story about the importance of peace between neighbors, but the story might be too simple for smaller children to handle.

This was This is the first folktale I have read from Wales and it is called “Slop! A Welsh Folktale” which is by Margaret Read MacDonald along with illustrations by Yvonne LeBrun Davis. This tale is about how an old couple learns about the importance of being good neighbors after they unknowingly throw their slop onto a tiny couple’s cottage. “Slop! A Welsh Folktale” is a cute story about the importance of peace between neighbors, but the story might be too simple for smaller children to handle.

This was quite an unusual story that I have picked up as it was one of the first folktales that I have read about peace between two neighbors. Margaret Read MacDonald has done an excellent job at retelling this old Welsh folktale. I loved how the main plot of the story was mainly about how two neighbors tried to work out a solution to their problem and it was really interesting (if not a little too predictable) about how the neighbors were able to come to a pleasant solution towards the slop problem. I also loved the way that Margaret Read MacDonald provided information at the end of the book about how she was able to obtain information about this folktale by using various sources from other books detailing Welsh folktales and it was also interesting learning about the beliefs that are found in many Welsh folktales such as how wee folks could give out gifts. Yvonne LeBrun Davis’ illustrations are extremely beautiful as each character looks realistic yet cute at the same time making this book an extremely cute read. I really liked the illustrations of the old couple themselves as they appeared to look friendly and wise, which really brought out the wise theme of this story and I also loved the images of the small couple as they are truly small and are no bigger than a hen which I found myself smiling at whenever I see an image of the wee man standing next to a hen and he is the same height as the hen.

The reason why I gave this book a three star rating is because I thought that the story was a bit too simplistic for my tastes since there does not seem to be enough action in this story that would keep me on my toes and also, the plot of the story seems to slow down quite often in this tale.

All in all, “Slop! A Welsh Folktale” is a cute tale about the importance of learning how to be a good neighbor and I think that children would enjoy the cute moral of the story, but the simplistic plot of the story might be too tiring for smaller children to handle. I would recommend this book to children ages four and up since there is nothing inappropriate in this story.
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May 03, 2010 Kathy marked it as to-read

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