Here are 94 books that Scottish Folk Tales for Children fans have personally recommended if you like
Scottish Folk Tales for Children.
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I'm a storyteller and folktale collector. All my jobs have involved telling stories – as a community librarian, in theatre, in education, and since 2006 as a professional storyteller and writer. I work in schools, festivals, and outdoor education with all sorts of people and their animals. I have honed my skills to find the most enjoyable traditional tales that can be shared widely. I live in Scotland, where I encourage families to read and tell their favourite stories together. Storytelling is a living art form that belongs to everyone. More than anything, I love the natural world, and I bring the magnificence of nature into all my work.
This book is packed with Taffy Thomas's best riddle tales.
Taffy has been storytelling for many years and is brilliant at it. He knows just how to keep a story short and exciting. Each tale has at least one and often more riddles to be solved by the reader or listener. The expertly drawn pictures are humorous and help you solve the riddles.
It's also great for storytellers, parents, and teachers who want to keep their audience actively engaged. I tell these riddle tales when I want my listeners to join in and be part of the fun. Taffy tells us where and who he learned the riddles from – an enjoyable insight into his extraordinary life as a teller of tales.
We have been fascinated by riddles for as long as we have had language - think of the legend of the sphinx in Greek mythology. This wonderful book includes both magical riddle tales and simple challenges, with clues and answers hidden in intricate illustrations. Discover how the farmer saved his daughter by solving the fairies' riddles or how the old hen-wife helped the two brothers solve the mystery of their father's will. Have a read - you'll be hooked.
I'm a storyteller and folktale collector. All my jobs have involved telling stories – as a community librarian, in theatre, in education, and since 2006 as a professional storyteller and writer. I work in schools, festivals, and outdoor education with all sorts of people and their animals. I have honed my skills to find the most enjoyable traditional tales that can be shared widely. I live in Scotland, where I encourage families to read and tell their favourite stories together. Storytelling is a living art form that belongs to everyone. More than anything, I love the natural world, and I bring the magnificence of nature into all my work.
This is a one-story picture book from another great storyteller, Eric Maddern, with fantastic illustrations by Paul Hess.
I love this clever, funny folktale and have often told it to festival and school audiences. The text is elegant and easy to read for ages 7 plus, but younger children will enjoy having it read to them. The humour in the tale is brilliantly portrayed in Paul Hess's colourful, amusing pictures. Look out for the three blind mice.
As with most folk stories, the meaning or moral of the tale is shown through clever wit and riddle-like logic. This story has a particularly surprising and satisfying end.
Old King Karnak is worried. He hasn't long to live, and there is no heir to the throne. So he holds a rather unusual competition to find one. Knights and nobles flock to the palace and the King gives each of them a tiny seed to grow. Jack the farmer's son is given a seed too, so he plants it, waters it and waits for it to sprout...
Praise for Nail Soup
"Space should still be found for this beautifully retold folk tale. Paul Hess's illustrations make ordinary household objects seem magically unreal all at the same time." - Carousel
I'm a storyteller and folktale collector. All my jobs have involved telling stories – as a community librarian, in theatre, in education, and since 2006 as a professional storyteller and writer. I work in schools, festivals, and outdoor education with all sorts of people and their animals. I have honed my skills to find the most enjoyable traditional tales that can be shared widely. I live in Scotland, where I encourage families to read and tell their favourite stories together. Storytelling is a living art form that belongs to everyone. More than anything, I love the natural world, and I bring the magnificence of nature into all my work.
This is a fabulous selection of stories from all over the globe. The tales are often funny, thought-provoking and entertaining.
Chris Smith clearly knows how to adapt traditional tales to encourage compelling storytelling. He keeps the stories short and manageable for the family to enjoy. You will find well-crafted retellings of old classics like The Princess and the Pea, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rumpelstiltskin, and Cinderella. And they are not sweetened for the faint-hearted - blood is spilt, and toes are chopped off!
There are also lesser-known stories like Fox's Sack and The Talking Skull that will enthral children from all cultures and their adults. An excellent book for mixed ages and professional teachers and storytellers. The source notes are outstanding, highlighting recorded/audio versions too.
These wonderful world tales are all selected from the highly acclaimed 147 Traditional Stories for Primary School Children to Retell, a storytelling resource used by teachers around the globe. In this collection intended for home use, the focus is on tales for children ages 4 to 6. The stories may be read, told, and retold, and then explored with the whole family. They offer a rich vein of world heritage, giving your family a doorway into the wonderful world of traditional tales.
Storyteller Chris Smith presents traditional oral stories from a variety of historical, cultural, and world sources, featuring:
I'm a storyteller and folktale collector. All my jobs have involved telling stories – as a community librarian, in theatre, in education, and since 2006 as a professional storyteller and writer. I work in schools, festivals, and outdoor education with all sorts of people and their animals. I have honed my skills to find the most enjoyable traditional tales that can be shared widely. I live in Scotland, where I encourage families to read and tell their favourite stories together. Storytelling is a living art form that belongs to everyone. More than anything, I love the natural world, and I bring the magnificence of nature into all my work.
This magical picture book presents seven of the best folk stories from around the world.
Retold by Hugh Lupton, a veteran of storytelling and an inspirational writer. Some stories are deliriously funny, and others contain golden nuggets of universal truth. I've repeatedly told these stories, and they enthrall and delight audiences. They come with a CD of Hugh telling the tales orally, which is fantastic for non-readers, busy families, and people learning English.
Niamh Sharkey's beautiful bold pictures take this book of tales to another level of enjoyment. It's a visual and rhythmical feast of storytelling that can be shared with ages six up to seniors. If I had to choose one favourite book of stories for oral telling, then this is it.
Beautifully captured by Niamh Sharkey's quirky and perceptive illustrations, these tales have all the color and vigor of the countries and cultures they represent. At the same time, they each remind readers how vast and mysterious the world is, and how lives can be transformed by the most unexpected circumstances. Full-color illustrations.
I have lived by the sea in the far north of Scotland, where I wrote The Wee Seal, and several other sea and seal themed books. I now live in Edinburgh by the sea and swim daily. I am also a storyteller with a keen interest in myth, and how myth impacts our lives. The recommendations I have given a nod to myth and their place in our life, and the sea, and how, at least in Britain, it is rarely that far away. A little wild, in a world that can feel, sometimes, too tame.
I love this book because it takes me to the far north (where I used to live).
It takes me back to the wide skies, jagged cliffs, pounding waves, miles of rough open land, and seals gazing at you from every bay and cove. I love reading old traditional tales because, as a writer, they feed me, and give me ideas for new stories.
When I stepped off the ferry onto Mainland Orkney, a piece of myself I never knew was missing suddenly slotted into place. Orkney became my geographic soulmate and I knew that The Darkest Court trilogy’s final book—and final battle—would have to take place there. Whenever I find myself longing to return, I pick up one of these books and throw myself back into the stories and histories that caught hold of my imagination all those years ago. I hope they stir your sense of magic and wonder the same way.
The best way to learn a new place is to read its folk tales. Muir’s curated collection not only gives a sense of the community values found throughout the wide spread of Orkney islands, but also of magic and wonder that pervades the place. You can easily take a tour to the specific locations mentioned in the stories, and I can assure you that rereading the stories in those places, with Muir’s charming, poetic prose, makes them come to life in fascinating new ways.
The Orkney Islands are a place of mystery and magic, where the past and the present meet, ancient standing stones walk and burial mounds are the home of the trows. Orkney Folk Tales walks the reader across invisible islands that are home to fin folk and mermaids, and seals that are often far more than they appear to be. Here Orkney witches raise storms and predict the outcome of battles, ghosts seek revenge and the Devil sits in the rafters of St Magnus Cathedral, taking notes! Using ancient tales told by the firesides of the Picts and Vikings, storyteller Tom…
When I first visited Scotland, I drove north from Edinburgh, driving through much of the country to catch a ferry to Orkney. This northern archipelago is certainly one of the most magical places I’ve ever been to; the steep sea cliffs and standing stones, windblown grasses, and violent waves put me in a gothic state of mind. I moved to Scotland a few years later to live by the sea. Since that first visit to Orkney, I’ve written my own Scottish gothic novels, as well as presented research on the gothic at various academic conferences. It’s a topic that I’m certain will compel me for a long time to come.
I picked up this book for its Scottish setting and gothic vibes (which did not disappoint!), but I devoured the book because of the characters who I was rooting for from page one.
It’s such a surprise and pleasure to read a large cast of (queer) women, each uniquely-drawn and with their own distinct desires and personalities. The setting of the book is brilliant as well–I cannot resist a book set in a Scottish forest. The story is threaded through with folklore, adding another layer to the gothic atmosphere.
'Intriguing, atmospheric, thought-provoking' Alexandra Bell
'Beautifully crafted, thrilling and atmospheric' Rebecca Netley
In the midst of the woods stands a house called Lichen Hall.
This place is shrouded in folklore - old stories of ghosts, of witches, of a child who is not quite a child.
Now the woods are creeping closer, and something has been unleashed.
Pearl Gorham arrives in 1965, one of a string of young women sent to Lichen Hall to give birth. And she soon suspects the proprietors are hiding something.
Then she meets the mysterious mother and young boy who live in…
I grew up in the heart of Scotland addicted to visiting museums and exploring local stories and legends. Now as an adult I’m either to be found with my nose in a history book or out on an archaeological dig. I love to weave the lives of Scottish heroes such as Roberts Burns into books filled with fantasy and adventure for children, and to write spine-chilling tales for adults where supernatural creatures from Scottish myths lurk between the pages. I recently co-created a series of educational writing videos for school children to help them explore the history of their local area, and hopefully inspire the historical authors of the future!
12-year-old Talorca is a Pictish girl living in northeast Scotland in 799 AD. When Gaelic-speaking Dalriadans arrive in her village, her world is turned upside down. Her only friend is the mythical Pictish Beast, who has been injured by the Dalriadans. Talorca decides to take a stand against the intruders and hatches a plan to drive them out. But she can only do that with the help of the wild beast on the broch…
With a loyal and endearing heroine, a beast steeped in mystery, and a wonderful cast of characters, this tale of adventures is grips the reader all the way to the end.
A lonely girl. A wild beast. An unforgettable friendship.
12-year-old Talorca is a Pictish girl living in North-east Scotland in 799 AD.
When Gaelic-speaking Dalriadans arrive in her village, her world is turned upside down. Her only friend is the mythical Pictish Beast, who has been injured by the Dalriadans.
Talorca decides to take a stand against the intruders and hatches a plan to drive them out. But she can only do that with the help of the wild beast on the broch.
I’ve written almost one hundred historical romances, so when it comes to making a marriage in a book swoonworthy, I know the hard work that an author has to put in. Whether it’s enemies to lovers, instalove, grumpy/sunshine, whatever it is: I have a huge amount of respect for authors who spend the time crafting a love story that makes me absolutely desperate for the wedding.
The queen of histromcoms (yup, that's historical romcoms) Caroline Lee has a hilarious series that makes me laugh literally out loud - and so far, I've actually cried with laughter twice.
This is another governess story but this time with a Scottish laird, outrageous twins, and assassin mystery to boot. You shouldn't say no to this book.
When I think of the distant past, I imagine it being populated by those who were a bit closer to the magical world than we. The men (or were they wizards?) who raised the standing stones. The druids of the ancient Celtic world. Figures like Arthur, Robin Hood, and the Viking shamans who harbored a kinship with the waters, with the trees, and with the land. The magic of the past is like a song played on a harp, the echoes of which still waft through our world. Some of us can hear those echoes yet, and some of us write about them.
Although this is, strictly speaking, a Young Adult level book, it belongs here in my cadre of stories that have woven a measure of magic through my being. I first read this as a young girl, and loved it so much I saved my pennies to buy my own copy (I still have it). Sally Watson showed me how to create a real, believable, and magical heroine. One with flaws, and fears, and a call to be other than those who surround her. Other than those who surround her. The story also takes place in the Scottish Highlands, a place very dear to my heart, and presents a wealth of actual historical characters who come to life between the pages. This one will forever have a place in my heart.
The time was 1644 in Inverness, Scotland. As the "wicked wee lass" raced along the steep streets, just ahead of the stones and cries of briosag! hurled at her, she wished with all her heart that she were a witch. What a spell she would put on them all! For all her seventeen years, Kelpie could remember nothing but belonging to Mina and Bogle, gypsies who lived by their evil wits. The only law any of them knew was that of self-preservation. Bogle said she had been kidnaped because of her blue ringed eyes of the "Second Sight," and she…
