The Singing Tortoise And Other Animal Folktales
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Authors
Yeoman, John
Issue Date
1994
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Book, Whole
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Abstract
Blake's illustrations are always fun. Here they accompany eleven lively stories, several of which use fable motifs. Thus the jackal in the first story uses the talking house gambit to get the crocodile to declare himself. The ram in the second story uses the thank you for bringing food for my child maneuver to frighten the leopard into running off with the jackal tied to him. The Nigerian title-story is strangely evocative. A man promises a singing tortoise that he will have to sing for this man alone if he takes him along out of the jungle, but the man is soon overcome with the desire to tell others the secret that this tortoise speaks. He sets the tortoise up for a public performance, and the tortoise does not speak. As soon as the man is beheaded, the tortoise speaks up to tell people that they were wrong to behead him, as the man had been wrong to make his speaking ability public. The Rabbit and the Elephants (89) is straight from the Panchatantra. The last chapter, A World of Folktales, gives the provenance of each tale. Alternating pairs of pages have, respectively, colored and brown-and-white illustrations. First published, apparently in 1993, in Great Britain by Victor Gollancz.
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Publisher
Tambourine Books: William Morrow & Company
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Identifier
3780 (Access ID)