Black Studies: Folklore

Mutha' Is Half a Word: Intersections of Folklore, Vernacular, Myth, and Queerness in Black Female Culture by L. H. Stallings Mutha' is Half a Word: Intersections of Folklore, Vernacular, Myth, and Queerness in Black Female Culture explores the importance of sexual desire in the formation of radical Black females' subjectivities in Black women's culture through the trope of the indefinable trickster figure.

Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. by Alan Dundes Exploring the scope, diversity, and vitality of black culture, here is a fascinating collection of more than sixty articles from some of the most perceptive and authoritative commentators upon the black experience--Zora Neale Hurston, J. Mason Brewer, Sterling A. Brown, Eldridge Cleaver, Willis Laurence James, John Lovell Jr., Langston Hughes, Charles W. Chesnutt, Alan Lomax, Ralph Ellison, A. Philip Randolph, Newbell Niles Puckett, Roger D. Abrahams, and many others.

Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston Mules and Men is a treasury of black America's folklore as collected by famous storyteller and anthropologist, Zora Neale Hurston, who grew up hearing the songs and sermons, sayings and tall tales that have formed an oral history of the South since the time of slavery.

The Book of Negro Folklore by Langston Hughes (editor); Arna Bontemps (editor) Comprehensive collection of folklore and folktales.

Gullah Folktales from the Georgia Coast by Susan Millar Williams (Foreword by); Charles Colcock Jones; Charles C. Jones Jr. Stories describe the adventures and mishaps of such characters as 'Buh Rabbit", ''Buh Ban-Yad Rooster,' and other animals. The tales range from the humorous to the instructional and include stories of a dying bullfrog's last wish, and others about how buh rabbit gained sense and why the turkey buzzard won't eat crabs.

Annotated African American Folktales by Henry Louis Gates (Editor); Maria Tatar (Editor) Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Maria Tatar assemble a groundbreaking collection of folktales, myths, and legends that revitalizes a vibrant African American past to produce the most comprehensive and ambitious collection of African American folktales ever published in American literary history.

The People Could Fly: American Black folktales by Virginia Hamilton; Leo Dillon (Illustrator); Diane Dillon (Illustrator) Retold Afro-American folktales of animals, fantasy, the supernatural, and desire for freedom, born of the sorrow of the slaves, but passed on in hope.

The Talking Eggs: A Folktale from the American South; by Robert D. San Souci; Jerry Pinkney (Illustrator) Blanche and her mother and older sister live on a small farm in the American south. Blanche is a hard worker and tends the whole farm by herself while her uncaring mother and sister laze about on the porch all day either ignoring or ordering Blanche around. But Blanche's fortunes soon change when she's kind to an old woman she meets in the woods.

Cendrillon: a Caribbean Cinderella by Robert D. San Souci; Brian Pinkney (Illustrator) A Creole variant of the familiar Cinderella tale set in the Caribbean and narrated by the godmother who helps Cendrillon find true love.

Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales by Virginia Hamilton; Leo Dillon (Illustrator); Diane Dillon (Illustrator) Collection of 19 folktales, legends, and true stories celebrating the heroic cunning, patience, and courage of African-American women and girls.