A Storyteller's Choice: Compiled by Eileen Colwell

In the Middle Ages, the status of a storyteller was such that he could ask for a harp from a King and a ring from a Queen in return for a well-told tale. The role of the storyteller has declined and storytelling no longer holds a place among the living arts. But there are those who still believe there is a need for storytelling. Eileen Colwell has collected twenty tales: funny tales, fairy and folk tales and classic tales. In this volume: Elsie Piddock Skips In Her Sleep, Eleanor Farjeon; The Swallow and the Mole, Geraldine Elliot; A Chinese Fairy Tale, Laurence Housman; The Young Man With Music In His Fingers, Diana Ross; The Jolly Tailor Who Became King, Lucia M. Borski and Kate B. Miller; The Selfish Giant, Oscar Wilde; Suppose You Met A Witch, Ian Serraillier; The Monster Who Grew Small, Joan Grant; The Children of Lir, Traditional; The Magic Tea-Kettle, John Masefield; A Meal With A Magician, J.B.S. Haldane; The White Cat, Countess D'Aulnoy; The Ballad of Semmerwater, William Watson; The Little Pagan Faun, Patrick Chalmers; The Mousewife, Rumer Godden; The Hurdy-Gurdy Man, Margery Williams Bianco; Lazy Tok, Mervyn Skipper; The Nightingale, Hans Andersen; Where Love Is, God Is, Leo Tolstoy. Cover art by Carol Barker.