Fables and Fairy Tales Books

Reviewed by Matthew Feliciano (age 8) for Reader Views (6/08)

"The Book of Wizards" is a very interesting book. It is a collection of stories that are all about wizards. I think that this book would be very educational and fun for anyone who is interested in wizards and sorcery. This book is sort of like a book of fairy tales or fables; the difference is that each story in this book told about a character that was a wizard or a witch or someone with powers.

My favorite story in the book was "The Black School." I thought it was really cool how ten men couldn't move the metal door but one person turned it into wood and then the three students were able to open it. That was smart thinking!

This was a great book for reading right before bed. Each story was not too long but not too short and they were written really, really well. It was easy to get caught in the story just like a regular book. "The Book of Wizards," by Michael Hague, is one of my new favorite books!

Boots and the Glass Mountain has the classic Cinderella plot but with a masculine twist. Horses, trolls, step-brothers and a glass mountain engage the reader beyond Cinderella and into a wonderful adventure story.

This is a wonderful children's book. It is a classic Latin American folktale. It was fun to travel with the Bossy Gallito to his uncle's wedding. Along the way, of course, he runs into some trouble and, well, you just have to read the rest! Although this classic cummulative story was familiar to my students, its illustrations captivated my second-grader's attention. We absolutely enjoyed this book! Another plus is that the book is bilingual. What more could you ask for? (For a comparison, try the same title written by Alma Flor Ada.)

The Boy Who Became A Bear by Jean McLaughlin is an original fantasy story enhanced with superbly crafted illustrations from Natalie de Stefano. This is the fascinating tale of Stefan, a curious explorer whose poor treatment of nature brought down upon him an unwelcome surprise from the Dark Wizard of the Dark Mountains and forest. For his disregard of nature and nature's creatures, Stefan is magically transformed into a bear. Following Stefan as he braves the terrifying forest as a newly converted bear, The Boy Who Became A Bear will fully engage the attention of young readers all ages, as Stefan travels far and wide, re-discovering the world through the eyes of a bear. An impressively written and beautifully illustrated fantasy, The Boy Who Became A Bear is very highly recommended reading and would be a popular paperback addition to any school or community library collection.

Bruchac's smooth yet distinctive reading voice, his excellent "animal" character voices, a sprinkling of songs, drumming, and rattles, and vivid stories make this a favorite of an almost 4 year old AND his 40-year-old mom -- especially the title story, which is moving without being sentimental. A very minor quibble is that Bruchac's voice occasionally "catches" as if he's stopping for breath at a line break. P.S. We liked this tape much better than the Navaho one in the series

I have liked Charles Reasoner's artwork for these Native American Lore & Legends series books, but "Brave Bear and the Ghosts: A Sioux Legend" is my new favorite because of the way he does the ghosts. You get a hint of it from the cover painting with Brave Bear on the left and a ghost riding a ghost horse on the right. But the ghosts are, for the most part, more purple than what you see. Reasoner's figures usually do not have mouths and for eyes just the little slits we would all associate with Snoopy in the "Peanuts" cartoons. This time, there are mouths for these figures, but mouths that suggest the space between the cranium and the jaw on a skull. The eyes are still little slits, but they have a dark circle around them. The shades of purple are also really cool. Too bad they are the villains in the story, retold by Gloria Dominic.

It is always winter in the land of ghosts and as they sit around talking about how much fun it is to scare people one of them tells of Brave Bear, a warrior and hunter who laughs in the face of death. The ghosts make a bet that the first ghost to scare Brave Bear will win the ghost horses of the others. But when they go after Brave Bear to win their bet he keeps making bets with them and winning their horses. This is fairly predictable, since Brave Bear is the hero of the tale. But what is great are all the clever ways that Brave Bear bests each of the ghosts. They are as cool as the illustrations of the ghosts, which is why this Sioux story has become one of my favorites. Plus, there is a punch line at the end that will appeal to young readers as well.

The back of the book talks about the Sioux, which is problematic because ever since "Dances With Wolves" most of us have learned that these people called themselves the Lakota (or Dakota or Nakota), and that the word "Sioux" is the Ojibwa word for "snake." That is covered in the back of this book, but then the book continues to use the derogatory term, but without justifying why (if kids can learn to call a brontosaurus an apatosaurus, they can learn to call the Sioux the Lakota). Is the point here that racism is okay if one Native American tribe hangs a derogatory name on another as opposed to having it done by the settlers? This book is going to be the first opportunity for many young readers to find out about this particular society, so this really should have been a Lakota (or Dakota or Nakota) legend.

The back of the book covers the homeland, food and clothing, and where the people called in this book the Sioux live today. Young readers will also find a Glossary of terms from "akicita" to "travios," and a list of important dates that begins with the 1700s when these people became expert horsemen and 1979 when the U.S. Supreme Court awarded them $105 million for the taking of their lands, which settled a legal action begun in 1923. This section is illustrated with historic photographs of these people and contemporary shots of artifacts. If the explanation for the name of the Sioux was not included here I would round down, but hopefully teachers and parents can rectify the decision made here.

This team of Thompson and Warhola has illustrated a few fairy tales that are great introductions to fairy tales for small boys -- and for girls as well, of course! Realistic, humorous illustrations with exuberance and robust humor. The expressions on the giants' faces in this book gave my five year old son the giggles! It was a real favorite at our house. Worth bringing back into print!

I am a huge fan of Lizbeth Zwerger, the illustrator of this traditional fairy tale. Technically, her work is extraordinary, but it is the magic she brings to every book she illustrates that lures me in every time. From The Wizard of Oz to Alice in Wonderland, Zwerger brings something new to even the most familiar children's stories. To me, her illustrations are works of art, but they are never cute and fuzzy. They may have more appeal for grown-ups or older children.

I collect children's illustrated books and within that hobby I
also have a collection of The Bremen Town Musicians. I chose to
make a collection of this particular book because 1) my ancestors
came from the area near Bremen about 150 years ago and 2) I love
architecture and this story lends itself to
some marvelous old German architectural illustrations. I have
discovered, so far, 54 different versions of this story. I have
24 of them, including 5 written in German. This is one
of my favorites. First, the story is better fleshed out than most.
I can't read German so I have never read the original version
but I strongly suspect this comes closer to it than most of the books.

I do have to agree with with the School Journal Library reviewer
that the red and blue discs used in place of eyes is a bit
distracting - at first, but in the end Johnson's illustrations
are among my favorite for this title also.

I disagree with that reviewer that the language is too advanced.
One thing I learned a long time ago is that you do not have to
read every word, if you are reading to a little one,
and sometimes you don't even have to read every page. Highly
imaginative children (such as my 4 year old granddaughter!) are
also very good in filling in the blanks, making up their own
story to go with the illustrations.

Among other favorites are the brand new one illustrated by
Niroot Puttapipat and a 1980's book illustrated by Martin Ursell.

Authors tackling Grimm Brother stories today have the difficult task of not always knowing what the best way to present the authors' original material is. If you've ever read a direct translation of a Grimm story then you know that they have a tendency towards violence, black and white terms of good and bad, didacticism, and some truly disgusting scenes. For her part, German born Doris Orgel has just translated and retold some of the Grimm Bros animal tales for the pleasure of young readers everywhere. Orgel recently translated the truly marvelous young adult novel, "Daniel Half Human and the Good Nazi", but her talents extend beyond rote rewrites. "The Bremen Town Musicians" is perhaps one of the smartest, friendliest, and beautiful picture books based on animal Grimm tales available to kids today.

The tales included in this collection are the standard tale of the Bremen Town Musicians, The Hare and the Hedgehog, King of the Birds, When the Birds and the Beasts Went to War, The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids, and finally The Fox and the Geese. Some of these stories will sound familiar. The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids, for example, has only slight variations from the tale of Little Red Riding Hood. As such, it's probably the most violent of the tales (which is impressive when you consider the source). Each story is retold in an accessible and pleasurable way. Orgel, in her preface, notes that she made a few changes "skipping what seemed preachy or obscure, but always very carefully, so as not to harm the 'oldness,' because that's where the magic is". The result is a meticulous series of tales that are just as new an interesting today as they were when first conjured up. Of these stories, "The Fox and the Geese" was undoubtedly my favorite. Not just because I'd never heard the story before, but because there's a great deal of mature joking going on behind the tale.

The illustrations in this tale are by Bert Kitchen and compliment the author's tone perfectly. In many ways, the pictures bear some similarities to those of fellow illustrator Genedy Spirin. They contain muted natural colors and characters with realistic looks. In this book, a donkey looks like a donkey and a fox looks like a fox. Kitchen never makes his characters cartoonish in any way, but that doesn't mean they don't engage in ridiculous behavior. There is a dignity to this book that, in the hands of any other illustrator, could easily have been lost.

If Orgel feels like making a second collection of tales based on Aesop, I wouldn't object a jot. A companion book would be just the thing to accompany such this particular collection. In the meantime, consider pairing this book with, "Anno's Aesop: A Book of Fables" by Mitsumasa Anno for a well-rounded animal-based fable storytime. Both are necessary to any well-rounded children's literary collection.