Adventures of Brer Rabbit and Friends [Hardcover]

Karima Amin (Author), Eric Copeland (Illustrator), Eric Copeland (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 9 and up

Brer Rabbit is one of the craftiest characters you will ever meet. Locked in an eternal game of catch-me-if-you-can with Brer Fox, Brer Rabbit thinks up the most outrageous tricks to outsmart him time and time again. And when he's not scheming against hungry Brer Fox, Brer Rabbit is busy trying to outwit Brer Weasel, Brer Terrapin, Brer Bear, and all of his other friends just for the fun of it. African-American storyteller Karima Amin's lively retelling of ten classic Brer Rabbit tales is based on the stories that she heard as a child. "I was a little girl when I first met Brer Rabbit," she recalls. "My mother brought him into our house and into my life. Many years later, I learned that Brer Rabbit was a hero-trickster character created by my foreparents, enslaved Africans," Amin uses her storyteller's art to recreate the oral tradition that kept these powerful stories alive on the plantations of the Old South. Eric Copeland's illustrations match the humor and mischief of the text, while photographs invite readers to explore the stories' settings, their African roots, and the life of their collector, Joel Chandler Harris. Great fun to read aloud, these are stories to be shared and treasured by all.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) was born in Eatonton, Georgia. He became a journalist and worked on several southern newspapers. In 1878 he published the first Brer Rabbit stories in the Georgia newspaper The Atlanta Constitution. The tales, narrated by a character named Uncle Remus, received immediate popular acclaim. Soon after, Harris published Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, the first of eight volumes of folktales that appeared between 1880 and 1918. Together, Harris's writings represent the largest collection of African-American folktales ever published. Karima Amin is a performing storyteller whose retellings reflect the strong oral culture of the original Brer Rabbit tales. She specializes in African and African-American fables and folktales, and is a member of the National Association of Black Storytellers. She has received many awards and honors in her field. Eric Copeland was educated in Britain and has lived in Canada for nearly thirty years. He works from his studio at home in the beautiful countryside near Ontario. Brer Rabbit and his animal friends are frequent visitors to Eric's backyard.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Hardcover: 64 pages
• Publisher: DK CHILDREN; 1st edition (November 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789449250
• ISBN-13: 978-0789449252
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 8.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,435,112 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brer Rabbit, Every Child's Pal, January 24, 2002

By 

Alison Hyde (East Aurora, NY, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Adventures of Brer Rabbit and Friends (Hardcover)

I give The Adventures of Brer Rabbit and Friends to every new baby I know! As a parent, grandparent, early childhood educator and school board member, I am thrilled to find a book that meets my criteria for excellence. Karima Amin has skillfully combined the richness of the vernacular language with current concepts and expressions familiar to today's child. The colorful, active illustrations also draw us into the wonderful world of pranks, surprises, and fun. Sections on the African storytelling tradition, the Southern plantation world of Brer Rabbit, and the animals native to Southern USA deepen our learning and appreciation of the treasured tales we have in this lovely book. Brer Rabbit and Friends is perfect for lap reading, group reading, dramatization and learning to be a storyteller. Karima Amin's Brer Rabbit is truly every child's pal!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brer Rabbit Redux, April 6, 2001

By 

Gary Earl Ross (Buffalo, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Adventures of Brer Rabbit and Friends (Hardcover)

The 1960s saw a much deserved rejection of traditional black stereotypes in literature and film. Gone--or going-- were Toms, Coons, Minstrels, Mammies, and Noble Savages. Among the casualties was the Uncle Remus stereotype created by Joel Chandler Harris and reinforced by the Disney motion picture Song of the South. An unfortunate side effect of the new black consciousness was dismissal of the vast collection of African folk stories Harris had collected in the 19th Century and first published in 1878. The Brer Rabbit stories, far from symbolizing slavery and oppression, are genuine products of African culture and tradition. That they have been ignored or disregarded by so many modern readers of color is a great loss. However discomforting Harris' gathering of tales may be--and reading Uncle Remus is indeed difficult--his work represents the largest single collection of African-American folk tales ever published.

Sister Karima Amin, well known storyteller, author, and teacher, seeks to remedy both this loss and our discomfort with the publication of The Adventures of Brer Rabbit and Friends. Amin takes possession of the folk tales--in fact, reclaims them--and retells ten of them with her own ample gifts for imagery, sound, and humor. Absent is the degrading Uncle Remus frame, which worked so much subconscious damage on those of us exposed to these tales in the 40s and 50s. In his place is Amin's wonderful voice--which translates well to the printed page, even for those unfortunate enough never to have heard her speak. (In the kindest of all universes, she will do an audiobook of this.)

Gone also is the degrading imagery I recall from one of my grammar school readers. Eric Copeland's lavish illustrations distance themselves from racial stereotype. The Tar Baby, for example, is a faceless mound of tar, not the black child in my fourth grade reader, and the animals are dressed in a variety of clothing, not traditional plantation garb. Without the burdens of the types of images Spike Lee derides in Bamboozled, the stories are free to be just what they are--object lessons, histories, entertainments, and, most of all, ours.

The book is further enhanced by a detailed map of Brer Rabbit's world, complete with footprints indicating the habitats of the animal characters profiled in the margins; extensive information about real rabbits, foxes, and the like; and a section on the history of African and African-American folk tales and slavery. Brer Rabbit and Friends can be enjoyed by children and adults from all walks of life without rousing uneasiness, inferiority, or superiority. Amin's only cultural agenda is to preserve African-American folklore with the respect it deserves. For that reason alone, the book deserves an honored place on the family bookshelf.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Magic Spring Tonic, November 11, 2001

By 

Jim Landau (Colden, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Adventures of Brer Rabbit and Friends (Hardcover)

November is a chilly, leafless month where I live in Western New York. However I just finished re-reading The Adventures of Brer Rabbit and Friends as retold by performing storyteller Karima Amin, and it was like drinking a magic spring tonic. Instantly, I found myself transported to the warm, sun-drenched, dreamy world of Brer Rabbit and his myriad animal neighbors. The text of each story wraps and winds its way around the lush color illustrations by Eric Copeland, with a sprinkling of big, bold, bouncy exclamations of "Bookity-Bookity", "Splishy-splushy", and "Lippity-clippety" jumping out to grab your attention at just the right moment. The stories have a universal appeal because they reflect the "life lessons" we all struggle to learn when growing up - to pay attention, to get along with your neighbors, to use your natural abilities, to take time to laugh. Of course, these stories didn't appear out of thin air and the book includes insightful background on the historical context of these classic African American tales and their even-earlier African origins. The only way the publishers could have improved upon this well-done project would have been to offer a cassette or cd/book read-along package. That would have allowed readers the pleasure of following along as Karima Amin brings to life these charming oral tradition folk tales.