Der Affenbaum: Indische Fabeln
Loading...
Authors
Geelhaar, Anne
Issue Date
1986
Volume
Issue
Type
Book, Whole
Language
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
Here is a squarish book 7¼ x 7 with a monkey looking at us on the cover. It has 40 pages. It belonged formerly to the Ministerium für Volksbildung, Zentralstelle für Kinder- und Jugendliteratur. Some of these stories are familiar from the usual Indian sources. Others seem new. The first story is clever. A hat seller stops for a moment's rest in the heat under a palm tree. He falls asleep, and when he wakes up, his basket formerly full of turbans is empty. He looks up to see a tree full of turbaned monkeys. He tries all sorts of ploys to get his turbans back. He tells all sorts of stories. Finally exasperated, he throws his own turban to the ground and says something like If you won't give me my turbans back, then take this one too! The imitative monkeys all throw their turbans to the ground, and he collects them. The story concludes And here are some of the stories he told them. Good stories. The ass sings to the full moon and gets beaten and confined (6). There is the sad story of the camel (9), familiar from Kalila and Dimna, but here with a different form. The same bad guys here -- leopard, jackal, and crow -- get the camel to call the king evil, and the king lion himself responds by eating the camel. A good illustration shows the camel at king lion's court (11). In what seems a borrowing from the Aesopic tradition, a jackal serves as judge between two monkeys who found a big cheese (16). Here it is the monkeys who keep saying His part is too big. Of course the jackal gets it all, bit by bit. There is the traditional story of the jackal who urges his cave to speak. The lion in the cave gives himself away (18). This illustration (19) may be the most suggestive in the group. Flamingo and crow do a variation on cat and fox, only this time about how to fly (23). The bear and the gardener become here the monkey and the king, and the monkey kills a bee with his sword (30). Alas, he kills the king too! Die drei Fische is also here (34).
Description
Citation
Publisher
Der Kinderbuchverlag Berlin
License
Journal
Volume
Issue
PubMed ID
DOI
Identifier
6502 (Access ID)