Library Essentials Month: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales

The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales (3-volume set) edited by Donald Haase is today's library essential. This one was released in 2007 almost ten years after I had started SurLaLune. At the time, I wished it had been available when I was first starting out along my fairy tale path, but I am grateful I have it along for the rest of the journey. When I am starting out on a new topic that I am not as familiar with in fairy tale scholarship I consult this volume and The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales (which I discussed yesterday). They don't always have what I am looking forward, but I usually find something I didn't know or didn't remember which then sets my brain off on several other searches. So use either of these with caution for you just might find more than you were searching for and enter a vortex of lost time.

Helpful resources within the book, beyond the entries, include: A list of entries, an extensive bibliography including online resources, and an index. I love a good index and one is entirely missing from The Oxford Companion I wrote about yesterday. You can browse through several of these appendices through Amazon's Look Inside feature.

Hundreds of alphabetically entries on themes and motifs, individuals, characters and character types, national traditions, genres, and other topics survey folk and fairy tales from around the world.

Folk and fairy tales exist in all cultures and are at the heart of civilization. This massive Encyclopedia gives students and general readers a broad, multicultural survey of folk and fairy tales from around the world. Included are hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries written by numerous expert contributors. Entries cover themes and motifs, individuals, characters and character types, national traditions, genres, and a range of other topics. Each entry cites works for further reading, and the Encyclopedia closes with a bibliography of print and electronic resources. Literature students will welcome this book as an aid to understanding and analyzing folk and fairy tales as literary forms, while social studies students will appreciate it as an exploration of the essence of world cultures.

Folk and fairy tales exist in all cultures and are at the heart of civilization. The most comprehensive work of its kind, this massive Encyclopedia gives students and general readers a broad, accessible, multicultural survey of folk and fairy tales from around the world. Edited by one of the foremost authorities on the subject, the Encyclopedia draws on the work of numerous expert contributors and covers a broad range of themes and motifs, characters and character types, genres, individuals, national traditions, and other topics.

Entry topics were chosen in consultation with a nine-member Advisory Board that includes some of the most prominent scholars currently pursuing the study of folk and fairy tales, such as Professor Jack Zipes of the University of Minnesota, whose work has revolutionized research on fairy tales.

Entries cite works for further reading, and the Encyclopedia closes with a bibliography of print and electronic resources. Literature students will value this book as an aid to understanding and analyzing folk and fairy tales as literary forms, while social studies students will appreciate the book's examination of the foundations of world cultures. And because many of these tales continue to influence films, television, and popular culture, general readers will welcome the Encyclopedia as a means of understanding the modern world.

Features
• Covers folk and fairy tales from around the world.
• Includes hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries by numerous expert contributors.
• Cites print and electronic resources.
• Includes entries on genres, themes and motifs, characters and character types, individuals, national traditions, and other topics.
• Discusses the presence of folk and fairy tales in literature and popular culture.
• Extensively cross-referenced.
• Fully illustrated.
• Helps literature students analyze and undestand folk and fairy tales as literary forms.
• Helps social studies students understand folk and fairy tales as the foundation of cultures around the world.
• Fosters a respect for cultural diversity.

This one also won several reference book awards and honors. It was intended for reference libraries for general audiences, but I find it useful at my level of knowledge, too.