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Reynard fox ending12/14/2023 ![]() ![]() The stories of Reynard, the trickster fox, are generally attributed to Aesop, a slave from Samos in the sixth century BC, but the version we are familiar with really comes from the Middle Ages. Although Renart’s medieval audience did not necessarily exclude the higher classes, it is the aristocracy that often came off the worst in these stories, and by borrowing from other noted romances or chanson de geste, such passages would appear more comical in the reader’s eyes. Rather, it makes fun of chivalry and the aristocracy - William Caxton’s fifteenth century English edition, The History of Reynard the Fox, was even labelled as an ‘anti-romance’. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.Īlthough the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.Despite being a roman, the story of Reynard is no romance in the traditional sense. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. 5-9)Ī collection of parental wishes for a child. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. ![]() Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam-but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. A fine, accessible edition in lengthy picture- book format, to share aloud or use as a young reader. His soft color-pencil drawings almost appear to be in coloring-book style, yet they are beautifully structured the characters are lively and have extraordinarily expressive faces, and the setting is skillfully evoked, both in the many details and in the animals' demeanor-they would be equally at home in a Chaucerian tale. Like Hastings's carefully honed text, Percy's illustrations have an apparent simplicity that disguises their considerable subtlety. Beginning with a scene in which Reynard's neighbor animals voice their complaints against him, she recounts three unsuccessful attempts to bring the miscreant to justice in the halls of King Lion. Basing her retelling of this traditional European story about an impenitent trickster on Caxton's 1481 translation, Hastings retains its medieval flavor in her details (Reynard, claiming to have reformed, ``has given away all his wealth, and spends hours a day on his knees in penance for his sins''). ![]()
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