Customer Reviews

Cajun Folktales (American Storytelling)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
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This book is full of tales to please even the hard-nosed, gonna find something wrong with it Cajun's like myself! Nothing annoys me quicker than to buy a 'Cajun' book and find it obviously written by someone who isn't. Ms. Reneaux always does a great job of depicting the truth as we see it, and recording our oral history in a way that even we (Cajuns) can recognize as our own! This book will teach you some about Cajun humor. If you want to learn more about our roots, this is a great place to start!

While I commend Reneaux for putting traditional stories into a convenient format, I read each of these stories feeling as if Justin Wilson was telling them. Wilson was over the top with his delivery, and so is Reneaux. It's one thing to tell a story in an interesting way, it's an entirely different thing to tell it in such a way as to "dumb down" the characters in the story. Also, judging by Reneaux's photograph on the back cover, it looks as if she's torn between wanting to be a voodoo queen and a theater student at the local university. In other words, she seems to be trapped in the the commercial idea of what is "Cajun." With no intended offense to Voodoo or its followers, Cajuns were never known for their mystical Voodoo powers as far as I know. We might be a little superstitious and quite a bit Catholic, but Voodoo never seemed to play heavily into the culture.

Anyway, the stories are fun to read, but just be cautioned that not all Cajuns act like Justin Wilson and J.J. Reneaux may want you to think they do. In fact, most of them are pretty intelligent people.

After I read a few of these stories (folktales), I read them to my wife in bed at nightime...wonderful tales to read outloud...like when we were children. Some have morals, some are just stories....but most are great. I can think of only two I did not like. I recommend this.

Bought this for our kids to help explore family history and culture. They loved it especially the local style of speaking.... even the ghost stories were ok and not too scary.