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Japanese Folk Tales Ten Stories in English

Japanese

Folk Tales

Ten Stories in English

Author

Karan A Chandler

Illustrator

Peter Hooper

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Creative Language ResourcesKaran Chandler253 Whitehouse LaneTamworth 2340

Australia

First published in 2006

Copyright Karan A Chandler 2006

Illustrations by Peter HooperCover designed by Karan A Chandler

COPYRIGHT

Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of study, research,criticism or review, or as permitted under Part VB of theCopyright Act, no part of this book may be reproducedwithout permission.Copyright owners may take legal action against a personwho infringes on their copyright through unauthorisedcopying. Enquiries should be directed to the author.

Typeset in 14, 16, 18 Futura BkPrinted in Australia by Booralong Press

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Japanese Folk Tales

Ten Stories in English

Introduction

Ten folk tales are written in English at four stages/levels to use for classroomliteracy exercises and/or in conjunction with Japanese Folk Tales ActivityBook and Japanese Folk Tales Creative Resources

This book was written on the request of teachers who considered thatobtaining the desired folk tale books at an appropriate reading level is oftenvery difficult and expensive. Therefore, as well as the numerous resourceslisted in Japanese Folk Tales Activity Book, a more available and userfriendly option has been provided in English. There are already sufficientjunior level books/stories/websites/videos available in Japanese, asindicated in the resource list.

All the stories are written in the recount genre with well spaced paragraphsover a three to five pages to allow for class sets to be made. Teachers mayuse this format to encourage students to rewrite stories in the Narrative,Dialogue or Poetic genres and to encourage group oral reading and drama.

Additional literacy and story recall exercises are provided at the back of thebook. These pages have application for any story and may be adapted toclass or teacher needs.

Extensive supporting language and literacy exercises and activities areprovided in Japanese Folk Tales Activity Book by the same author. Acomplementary book, Japanese Folk Tales Creative Resources by PeterHooper has an extensive range of 2D and 3D craft and art activities basedon the ten folk tales in this book.

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Kintaro, the Golden Boy

Long, long ago in the far away mountains of Japan there

lived a woman who had a baby boy. She called him

Kintaro, which means Golden Boy. Even as a baby he was

very strong. They lived at the foot of Ashigara Mountain,far away from other people. He had no brothers or sisters

to play with so his friends were the animals of the forest.

He played with them every day.

They ran, jumped and wrestled and he became stronger

and bigger, day by day. His mother made him a red vest

which had the kanji letter for gold on it. At first the vest was

much too big but he wore it and wore it until he grew into

it. Soon Kintaro was the strongest of all and he alwayswon the wrestling contests.

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Kintaro and his friends liked to go up on the mountain and

collect chestnuts to eat. One day, some of the animals said

they would not go with him. They told Kintaro that a bigbear on the mountain was scaring all the animals and they

were too frightened to go up there. Kintaro was very brave

and told them not to worry. He set out with his friends to

teach the find the bear and make the mountain safe again.

They marched up the mountain until they came upon the

bear in a clearing. He tried to scare Kintaro too, but

Kintaro bravely challenged him to a wrestling match.

The bear laughed. He thought Kintaro was too small tobeat him. The animals moved back to the edge of the

clearing because they were still afraid, but Kintaro stood

his ground. He wrestled the bear until the bear was tired

and then he picked up the bear to show all the animals

how strong he was and who was the real champion of the

mountain.

The bear gave in and Kintaro made him promise not to

scare or hurt the forest animals ever again. Kintaro and hisfriends collected some chestnuts and kindly gave some to

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the bear. Then Kintaro rode home to his mother on the

bears back with all his animal friends running happily

beside them. From that time, Kintaro and the animalsincluded the bear in their games and sports.

When Kintaro was just five years old, his mother gave him

an axe to carry with him when he went into the forest. He

never used his axe as a weapon but was able to help his

mother by cutting firewood to bring to home every day.

One day Kintaro and his friends were up on the mountain

when a nasty storm came up. They were hurrying homewhen they found the bridge across the gorge was gone.

Kintaro looked at a nearby tree to cut down but it was too

short. So he reached his arms around the tree trunk and

pulled until the tree came out of the ground, roots and all. It

fell across the gorge and made a perfect bridge and they

all got home safely.

Thanks to Kintaro, all the people and animals on Ashigara

Mountain lived a happy and safe life and Kintaro was theirhero.

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