'FUNNY BABY' STORIES FOR A BABY SHOWER
(excerpts from posts)
(If you want to retell any of the stories listed below, be sure to obtain permission from the copyright holder if the material is not in the public domain)

1) German folktale about the old man who becomes a baby who becomes an old man is The Bee-Man of Orn by Frank R. Stockton, an American writer who died in 1902. It's in a book with wonderful illustrations by Maurice Sendak and the publisher is Bodley Head. Also available in American Fairy Tales: From Rip Van Winkle to the Rootabaga Stories by Neil Philip.

2) Told by Beth Horner and others. The Be Nice story: pregnant mother stroking abdomen and telling twins to be nice. They are born when mother is in her nineties - two old men arguing about who should "go first."

3) Russian: The Three Gold Hairs in Women Who Run with the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes (Ballantine Books: NY, 1992), pp. 328-329. Old man grows younger and becomes sun. (Sources of this story as Rumanian, with Teutonic, Celtic, and Mexican versions, too.

4) One about facing your fears head-on and learning from that is The Monster Who Grew Small. Print version can be found in the first volume of The Storyteller's Choice by Eileen Colwell.

5) Whuppity Stourie, Scottish.

6) The Poor Blind Childless Man – Man with only one wish and three needs.

7) The Pickpocket's Child - those long fingers hid much.

8) Whose Children are They?, an African tale from Fair is Fair by Sharon Creedon

9) Ooka & the Wasted Wisdom, also from Fair is Fair by Sharon Creedon

10) The 9 Crying Dolls, a Polish folktale found in an Anne Pellowski book.

11) A Bargain is a Bargain – The lawyer of three sons (or modernized to daughters) tricks the devil into not taking the father's soul.

12) Some of the other stories or books:
Baby Says by John Steptoe
Goodnight, Moon by Margaret Wise Brown.
Here are my Hands by Bill Martin
How do I put it on? by Shigeo Wantanabe
I Went Walking by Sue Williams,
In the Rain with Baby Duck by Amy Hist, part of a series.
Is Your Mama a Llama? by Deborah Guarino,
Little Gorilla by Ruth Bornstein
"More, More, More," said the Baby by Vera Williams
Ten, Nine, Eight by Molly Bang
The Very Hungary Caterpiller by Eric Carl
Love You Forever by Robert Munsch
Julius, the Baby of the World by Kevin Jenkes

(This web page updated 12/9/02)