Honesty & Truth
Truth, lies, evidence and belief are at stake in these stories. Some characters expose fraud; others struggle to be believed, or use deception themselves. Compare what the reader knows with what each character can prove. The outcomes provide material for discussing trust without promising that honesty always brings immediate success.
Russian Folk Tales
Vasilisa the Beautiful
Sent to Baba Yaga's hut for a light, Vasilisa survives the witch's chores with help from her mother's magic doll and carries home a glowing skull.
Russian Folk Tales
Koschei the Deathless
Prince Ivan frees a chained prisoner and loses his warrior wife to him, then must win a horse from Baba Yaga before he can defeat Koschei the Deathless.
Russian Folk Tales
Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird, and the Gray Wolf
Carried by a gray wolf, Ivan Tsarevich twice gives in to temptation on the Firebird quest, then wins a horse, a bird and a princess before his brothers strike.
Arabian Nights
Ages 9-12
The Fisherman and the Genie
A poor fisherman tricks a furious genie back into his jar, and the four coloured fish he wins lead a curious Sultan to a palace of black marble.
Arabian Nights
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
Ali Baba overhears Open, Sesame, loads his donkeys with gold—and Morgiana outwits chalk marks, oil-jar assassins, and a guest who will eat no salt.
Norse Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
Soria Moria Castle
Halvor leaves home by ship and frees three princesses from trolls, but a boast costs him the ring that could bring him back to Soria Moria Castle.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Honest Witch
A magistrate who has ordered every shaman in his county put to death meets one riding calmly toward him, and she offers to prove that honest ones exist.
Korean Folk Tales
Faithful Mo
A slave’s beautiful daughter marries a scholar against a prince’s will, and after her death he meets her spirit one moonlit night on Camel Mountain.
Celtic Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Tale of Ivan
Ivan takes three pieces of advice instead of three years’ wages, and each one saves his life, his friends or his good name on the long road home.
Celtic Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Shepherd of Myddvai
A Welsh shepherd wins a lovely maiden from the lake with the right kind of bread, but she warns him she will leave if he strikes her three times without cause.
Celtic Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The House in the Lake
A fisherman’s son spares a little trout that turns into a talking swan, and to free her he must walk the lake bed past a dragon to the fairy queen.
Celtic Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
Elidore
A boy runs away from his strict monk teachers and is led through a cave into a sunless land of little people, until greed for a golden ball ends it all.