How the Leopard Got His Spots

Relates how the leopard got his spotted coat in order to hunt the animals in the dappled shadows of the forest.

The best thing about this book-and-recording package is the evocative Ladysmith Black Mambazo vocal group providing background on the cassette. Nothing else quite measures up. The narrator's low and sibilant reading is sometimes effective but often difficult to understand unless you are reading along. The chief feature of the sinuous, wildly colored fauvist illustrations is the remarkably unattractive figure of the Ethiopian, who appears to be a victim of advanced elephantiasis, bloating his torso and lower limbs. The eponymous leopard looks rather more like a dog (like Lassie, in fact, in the opening spread) than a cat. Color cues explicitly supplied by Kipling are disregarded ("chestnut blotches" become Chinese red, pink, and white; "black spots" are entirely red and lilac). Leopards, Ethiopians, and the Just-So stories deserve better. --Patricia Dooley, University of Washington, Seattle
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.