The Dancing Turtle: A Folktale from Brazil (Pleasant DeSpain)

Mira and the Stone Tortoise (Melinda Lilly)

These are very similar tales.  Both boil down to a father finding a turtle and leaving his children charged with not opening the cage while he left.  Of course, the children were fooled (although in different ways) and the turtle escaped.  Mira had a much more entertaining story leading up to the tortoise being captured; however, the father in this version never figured out that the stone he cooked wasn’t the tortoise.

In addition to enjoying the stories and the pictures, we also used these tales to talk about the way the stories were similar and different.  A great conversation!