Once upon Another - The Tortoise and the Hare / The Lion and the Mouse

Retells the stories of the tortoise and the hare, and the lion and the mouse

Kindergarten-Grade 3-- Two well-known fables by Aesop, The Tortoise and the Hare and The Lion and the Mouse , are paired here in a special way. Despite their different morals, these fables share a common theme: that appearances may be deceptive. MacDonald and Oakes illustrate these tales in a manner exactly suited to that theme. Abstract cut-paper shapes represent the actors and the settings; when readers finish one story they may turn the book upside-down and begin the other, reading the same (although inverted) shapes in a new context. Here the task is of a different order of magnitude than in Ann Jonas' Round Trip (1983) and Reflections (1987, both Greenwillow). The interpretive powers of the imagination are stretched, and the brightly colored forms (the tortoise/mouse is deep purple) and the pleasing texture of the lion/hare (in shaggy golden handmade paper) encourage involvement. A sophisticated exercise in gestalt, this book is perhaps too great a perceptual challenge for most young readers. --Patricia Dooley, Univ . of Washington, Seattle
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The Numblers and Puzzlers team is back with a challenging new work: a book that, when turned upside down, tells two stories. The familiar fables of "The Tortoise and the Hare" and "The Lion and the Mouse" are retold here without much alteration. What makes the book unusual is that its art does double duty: one set of images illustrates both stories. Abstract forms--circles, stripes and vague masses--represent characters and action. However, the torn-paper collages, while visually striking, are not entirely successful as complements to the text, and do not do much to move the stories along. Patience and imagination are not always rewarded here, where a purple shape denotes both the mouse and the tortoise and a yellow-orange one signifies the lion and the hare. This is an interesting idea that seems to have lost something in the execution. Ages 5-up.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.