Updated
Picture books of folktales from India, many of them old enough to have traveled around the world. Good for read-alouds and for comparing versions of the same story.
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One Grain of Rice
Demi
A girl asks a greedy raja for one grain of rice, doubled every day for 30 days, and ends up feeding the village. Also a math lesson.
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Grandma and the Great Gourd
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
A Bengali folktale. Grandma outwits the animals who want to eat her on the way to her daughter's house.
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Once a Mouse...
Marcia Brown
A hermit turns a mouse into bigger and bigger animals to save it, until it forgets where it came from. Won the Caldecott Medal.
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The Monkey and the Crocodile
Paul Galdone
A Jataka tale. A clever monkey keeps escaping a crocodile who wants his heart.
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The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal
M. J. York
A Brahman frees a trapped tiger who then wants to eat him, and a jackal tricks the tiger back into the cage.
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Seven Blind Mice
Ed Young
Seven mice each feel one part of something big and guess wrong, based on the Indian fable of the blind men and the elephant. Caldecott Honor.
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The Blind Men and the Elephant
Karen Backstein
The original fable as an easy reader for first and second graders.
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Pattan's Pumpkin
Chitra Soundar
A flood story from the Irular people of South India. Pattan's giant pumpkin carries his family and the animals to safety.