The Jewish Story Finder: A Guide to 363 Tales Listing Subjects and Sources Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy The Jewish Story Finder: A Guide to 363 Tales Listing Subjects and Sources? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on The Jewish Story Finder: A Guide to 363 Tales Listing Subjects and Sources. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

The Jewish Story Finder: A Guide to 363 Tales Listing Subjects and Sources ReviewAs a storyteller and rabbi, I have wanted a tool like this for quite some time. There are some great story source books (e.g. THE STORYTELLERS SOURCEBOOK (s) of Margeret Macdonald) out there, but we needed one from the Jewish world of stories. Many of these other source books are incomplete when it comes to finding Jewish stories for all ages.
This is an outstanding and very easy resource to use. I especially like the "age appropriate" index ("Appendix: Story Recommendations for All Ages") apparatus. And having a title index and a subject index, not to mention organizing the stories under topic headings in the first place makes this book a very helpful resource for storytellers, teachers and parents (and/or anyone just looking for good Jewish stories for reading or listening).
The brief one paragraph descriptions are just great! They include enough about the story that if you have another version or know the story, they serve as excellent outlines or brief reminders of the stories for purposes of telling. They are well written and include enough about the story to give a good idea if you want to find it and do more with it.
This is also an excellent bibliogrpahy and after each story, she includes a little section "How Else This Story is Told", which includes a sampling of other versions and where they can be found.
One small caveat or nitpick there: I would have liked to have had more reference material for classic rabbinic (E.g. The Talmud) sources when availible in the section "How Else This Story is Told". For example, she doesn't always include the classic rabbinic sources there. And when she does, she just writes, "In the Babylonian Talmud" or "In the Talmud".Sharon Barcan Elswit is the head librariain of a Jewish school in Manhattan; surely she could have found these references.
However, as I say, it is a nitpick, because you can find these references in many of the sources she DOES list (i.e. if you get one of the books she lists as a source of the story, many of these authors and editors will list exactly where it can be found in the Talmud or classic Midrash), not to mention that with an online serach engine, or a CD-ROM of rabbinic sources (such as Davka's JUDAIC CLASSICS), once you know they are there, they are very easy to find. You can also use THE BOOK OF LEGENDS and/or EIN YAAKOV and look the stories up their indexes and both of these are also availible on CD-ROM.
All in all, I am very grateful this book exists and for me as a storyteller and a rabbi, it is well worth the money. I highly recommend it to anyone involved in storytelling, folk culture and Jewish learning for all ages. I look forward to future editions.The Jewish Story Finder: A Guide to 363 Tales Listing Subjects and Sources OverviewA subject guide to hundreds of Jewish stories, this book's purpose is to help teachers, rabbis, librarians, folklorists, parents, and storytellers find the right story to match their need. It also will lead educators to a wealth of Jewish stories on universal themes for use in multicultural programs for all ages. The stories are numbered for easy reference and grouped in broad categories--for example, God, faith, and prayer; rabbinic wit and wisdom; tricksters and fools; festivals and holidays. For each story, a list of tellings (author and book title) provides numerous options for the story seeker, and a list of keywords connects the story subject categories. Two cross-referenced indexes make locating stories easy, whether by subject keywords or by title. An appendix lists recommended stories for children of different ages, from lower elementary through middle school. The bibliography of almost 200 story collections and picture-book tales gives the information needed to locate a source for every story in the book.

Want to learn more information about The Jewish Story Finder: A Guide to 363 Tales Listing Subjects and Sources?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now