Structure of the Library
After translating 1,600 folktales in Hindi, a good size library, I found out that the folktales did not need only translation, they needed some other kind of special treatment also so I divided them into two sections – (1) Collections, and (2) Books.
Tales collected individually were kept under the Section “Collection”. Some more books which were either not available easily, or published several time by several publishers all over the world, or were published before 1900 were also translated, and those books were kept under the Section “Classic Books”.
1-Collection
These folktales, collected individually from various sources, are kept in this Section. This Section has been divided in four sub-sections –
First of all the tales were divided according to their geographical areas. About 40 books are ready in this category.
Among them many tales were such that they delivered the same message on some specific topic. So many tales were distributed among various topics. About 50 books were made of such nature.
–During this process some other points were also noted and this applies only to very famous and popular tales, for example, like Cinderella, or Tom Thumb etc tales which are not alone in the world but they are told in other countries too with a little or no variation at all.
–one tale can have several versions, not even in its own country of origin but also in other countries too. When while reading or listening it you are bound to say “Oh, is it not the same story which we have heard last time, but it is still similar. Either you are telling it wrongly or maybe I have forgotten.” In fact nobody is wrong both are right in their own way.
Such tales were collected at one place under the Series “One Story Many Colors”. Twenty plus books have been assembled under this series.
These books are not the folktale books but are of some other educational and informational books written not only for children but also for grown-ups. They can also read them and get benefited from them.
Meanwhile I came to realize that there were some very old books also which needed special attention. They could be classified as classic books, or forgotten books, or old books which needed this treatment. Only those books which were published around 1900 and before OR if they seemed to be rare, OR they looked interesting (only by personal judgment) have been selected for this purpose. Presently the following three categories have been used to select them :
All African Folktale Books
In this section only those books are included which contain only African folktales not on or about their folktales.
All Indian Folktale Books
In this section only those books are included which contain only Indian folktales not on or about their folktales.
Folktale Books Prior to 1900
This section covers the books of Asian and European folktale published before 1900
Some books have already been published by publishers. Those published titles are given here but their stories are not given on this website. There are seven such books.