Book Corner
2008 Aesop Award Winners and Accolade recipients, selected by the AFS Children's Folklore Section

Synopses submitted by Jacqueline S. Thursby, Brigham Young University
The Aesop Prize and Aesop Accolades are conferred annually by the Children’s Folklore Section of the American Folklore Society upon English language books for children and young adults, both fiction and nonfiction. The award criteria include: Folklore should be central to the book’s content and, if appropriate, to its illustrations; the folklore presented in the book should accurately reflect the culture and worldview of the people whose folklore is the focus of the book; the reader’s understanding of folklore should be enhanced by the book, as should the book be enhanced by the presence of folklore; the book should reflect the high artistic standards of the best of children’s literature and have strong appeal to the child reader; and folklore sources must be fully acknowledged and annotations referenced within the bound contents of the publication.

This year the committee has chosen one Aesop Award winning books and two Aesop Accolade books.

Ain’t Nothing But a Man: My Quest to Find the Real John Henry. Scott Reynolds Nelson, with Marc Aronson. National Geographic, 2008. ISBN 9781426300004

Scott Nelson’s outstanding work is a meticulously documented historiography of his lengthy search to find the historical roots of the legend of John Henry, rather than a retelling of the well-known story and song. Derived from his academic book for adults, Steel Drivin’ Man: John Henry and the Untold Story of an American Legend (Oxford University Press, 2006), his research has been recast, with the assistance of Marc Aronson, as non-fiction for a younger audience, heavily illustrated with period photographs of railroad history. The research on the origin of the legendary figure is fascinating, while the work also provides insight into what it means to be a historian – or a folklorist. Nelson stresses the open-ended nature of history as process, not simply an endless account of facts and dates. In examining the historical process, he demonstrates the role that research into folklore can play in revealing previously unwritten history.

Nelson is not the first to ask whether there was an actual historical figure behind the well-documented song recounting an epic battle between man and machine, in which a steel-driving man outperformed a steam drill, but died as a result of the contest. However, he has unearthed new evidence and presents it persuasively to suggest that there was a real John William Henry, incarcerated in the Virginia Penitentiary in 1866 at the age of 19, who was one of over 300 African-American prisoners who died as a result of being contracted out to work on the C&O Railway. He includes an intriguing picture , taken in 1863, of a young black man named John Henry who worked in the Union Army’s 3rd Army Corps in Virginia, but he acknowledges that he can not prove that this is the same man. The Aesop committee’s comments note that “by exposing the racial complications of the story, [Nelson] provides insight not only into the history of one song, but also into the complex relationship of history, race, and folk memory.” Aronson’s afterword, “How to Be a Historian,” extends the importance of the story to young readers by emphasizing ways that they themselves can participate in the historical process.
 
 

Dance in a Buffalo Skull. Told by Zitkala-Sa. Illustrated by S. D. Nelson. Prairie Tales Series, no. 2. South Dakota State Historical Society Press, 2007. ISBN 9780977795529

S. D. Nelson’s stunning illustrations bring new life to the language used by Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Simmons Bonnin) when in 1901 she retold a story she heard as a child on the Yankton Sioux Indian Reservation. In this small-format picture book, the breathtaking artwork by Nelson, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, heightens the suspense of this tale of night on the prairie, as happy mice feast and dance inside a buffalo skull, heedless of danger, while a wildcat silently creeps close, attracted by their merriment. The sensory imagery is rich, drawing out the sights and sounds of the prairie. Zitkala-Sa’s powerful storytelling makes this an excellent choice for reading aloud.

Zitkala- Sa, herself Lakota, born in 1876 on the Yankton Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota, served as a bridge between the tribal people of her birthplace and the white society that educated her in a Quaker mission boarding school, Earlham College, and the New England Conservatory for Music. As a writer, political activist, and musician, she sought to convey for a white audience, the traditions, values, and worth of her Indian heritage. This voice from the past is still strong today as her love for the teaching tale she learned from the Elders shines through in this story. One Aesop committee member commented “For someone writing a hundred years ago as an indigenous author, trying to present her culture to an outsider audience, I think she did an incredible job - and I love the way Nelson’s illustrations enhance the language for a modern audience and make it clear how well-done her telling really is.” The work of the South Dakota Historical Society Press, in its ongoing efforts to reflect the rich and varied history of South Dakota and to preserve its colorful culture and heritage, merits recognition.
 
 

The Adventures of Molly Whuppie and Other Appalachian Folktales. Anne Shelby. Illustrated by Paula McArdle. University of North Carolina Press, 2007. ISBN 9780807831632

Storyteller Anne Shelby’s updated Appalachian sensibility brings a charming twist to a collection of stories based on traditional tale types. The dynamic storytelling voice has the ring of folk wisdom, with a flair for the fun in the familiar. Heroine Molly Whuppie encounters witches, giants, an ogre who refuses to do housework, unwanted boyfriends, and a spectrum of puzzling predicaments. This clever and courageous girl manages to circumvent catastrophe with a potent combination of nerve, trickery, and plain old luck. Other characters include Molly’s sisters Poll and Betts, the famous Appalachian hero Jack (rescued more than once by Molly herself), and three cornbread-baking mice. In looking for stories with a strong woman or girl character, Shelby brings together the British Molly Whuppie with the Appalachian Munciemeg or Mutsmag. She also borrows some stories more commonly associated with Jack or the less well-known Appalachian male Merrywise. Whimsical illustrations complement the witty delivery and enliven the text.

Shelby is frank about the liberties she has taken in bringing a modern sensibility to her adaptations, but she carefully notes her sources and acknowledges the changes she has made. While she sometimes transforms male characters to female, she also brings existing women characters to the forefront, as in her version of “Raglif Jaglif Tartliff Pole,” in which the often anonymous giant’s daughter who saves Jack’s life is transformed into an Appalachian Molly. She notes her driving criteria: “I had to have some evidence of the story’s having been told in the Appalachian region, and I had to like it.” The Aesop committee especially commends “the care with which she preserves unique cultural expressions that give her stories such a strong flavor of Appalachian language” – a language she herself grew up with in eastern Kentucky in the 1950s. This collection is sure to appeal to readers, young and old alike.