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One Potato, Two Potato: The Folklore of American Children

Children's folklore―those customs, rhymes, games, jeers, songs, superstitions, stories, and pranks that children play among themselves―serves an important purpose: it helps them deal with feelings and taboo subjects which they are unable to express individually.

The purpose of this book is to show how children use their traditional lore to cope with the stresses of their lives and to learn what it means to be a member of a human society. The subjects’ ages ranged from grade-school children through college freshman, located in forty-three states, the Virgin Islands, the Canal Zone, and American military bases abroad. The materials in this collection were drawn from a random sample.