| Folk literature has been assigned a permanent place in the canon of children's literature for cultural, aesthetic, psychological, and literary reasons. Because of its significance, quality retold folk literature that preserves the exemplary characteristics of the genre needs to be shared with children. However, the sheer volume of versions, variants, adaptations, and retellings published in the last 20 years has made choosing the best from the many a difficult task. One standard that may be used to assist in evaluating the batch of current folktales is the style of writing in the folktale.;This study analyzed contemporary retellings of traditional folktales to determine (a) the stylistic structures used by authors in selected exemplary retold folktales published in the last twenty years, and (b) the dictional choices used by authors to convey the folkloric experience in selected exemplary retold folktales published in the last twenty years to provide a guide for the informed selection of quality folkloric literature for use in the classroom. Seven books were chosen for this stylistic analysis, deemed exemplary by their appearance on at least five of the national authoritative lists compiled by specialists in the field of children's literature. Stylistic features were divided into the general stylistic categories of choice of diction and sentence structures and then further divided into sub-categories for analysis.;The results indicated that the authors of these exemplary retold tales used a wide variety of stylistic structures in their retellings, and their choices were not confined to simple, unsophisticated structures. A pattern of author's choices emerged which could provide assistance when making selections of quality folk literature. This pattern may be used as a guide for teachers and others who share folk literature with children to identify quality folkloric material for use in the classroom and elsewhere from the vast amount of material that is available today. |
