Fifty Famous Stories Retold Book

Free ebook (here), a collection of very short stories.

Rating books written for children is hard because I am not the target audience any more. Many of these stories carry morals, and we have grown to dislike didactical qualities. Worse, some of the messages are outdated. (I'm sure many parents, as well as their kids, bark at the story of Casabianca.) Stories that are attributed to historical figures may or may not be true.

Yet, these simple stories have been loved over many generations. Try a few to your kids--they might like them. Young children need simple instructions, and if they come in fun and memorable stories, all the better.

I especially enjoyed the Endless Tale. How can we satisfy a bored king who wants to be entertained endlessly? Scheherazade lasted for a long time, but not quite forever . . . Maximilian and the Goose Boy is fun, too. (Which child doesn't like a defiant boy who scolds on a king?) Whittington and his Cat is a rags-to-riches story loosely modeled after a historical figure; I guess many cultures have similar stories--in Japan, there are the stories about Toyotomi Hideyoshi. It can be inspirational, you know.