Children’s Folklore Recent Titles in Greenwood Folklore Handbooks Myth: a handbook

MATERIAL CULTURE
Children’s familiarity with material culture—the process of creating and using 
things—has resulted in the production of toys and shelters, as well as customs 
and beliefs associated with objects. Nature lore, understudied by contemporary 
folklorists, drew the attention of scholars in the nineteenth and early twentieth 
century. William Wells Newell discusses “flower oracles,” including daisy petals 
and blades of grass, that foretell future spouses, in his 
Games and Songs of Ameri-
can Children
105– 7). Alice Morse Earle’s 
Child Life in Colonial Days
(1900) de-
scribes children’s nature play, including the creation of whistles and tea sets from 
natural objects. In 1987, Jeanne R. Chesanow published 
Honeysuckle Sipping: Th
 e 
Plant Lore of Childhood,
based on interviews with adults who fondly remembered 
sipping “honey” from honeysuckle blossoms and interacting with nature in other 
traditional ways. Laura Watson’s essay “The Nature Lore of Children: Functions 
Halloween trick-or-treaters in Maine, 2007. Photograph by Martha Harris.

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and Variations” (1993) analyzes children’s use of natural objects to make toys, 
games, and weapons. Examining an intriguing range of beliefs and practices re-
lated to nature, Watson concludes that “magic is the most important element of 
nature” (59).
Toys, defined by Bernard Mergen as “the material artifacts of play,” include 
both homemade and store-bought items. Mergen observes that the Industrial 
Revolution gave children new playthings, including coat hangers, tires, rubber 
bands, tin cans, and bottle tops (103). From colonial times to the early twentieth 
century, children made many of their own playthings. The twentieth century’s 
booming toy industry shifted children’s focus to appealing mass-produced toys. 
In spite of the availability of commercially produced toys these days, many chil-
dren enjoy making simple toys of their own. Some of the most common folk 
toys made by children include paper fortune-tellers (sometimes known as cootie 
catchers), paper footballs, slingshots, and pop-guns (Bronner 199 –203). 
According to the season, children build different outdoor shelters. In winter, 
snow forts and houses make good places to hide. Summertime creations include 
Tree house built by three brothers in Logan, Utah, 
2007. Photograph by Geoffrey Gould.

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44 Children’s 
Folklore
tree houses and other shelters made of salvaged materials. Some families’ tree 
houses, built by a child or children over a period of years, become cherished arti-
facts of the family’s growth.