Customer Reviews

Adventures of Brer Rabbit and Friends

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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!

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.

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.

As the parent of an African-American child, it is very important that I expose my daughter to the richness of her legacy - Adventures of Brer Rabbit and Friends has assisted in this exposure. Karima Amin has compiled a vast variety of interesting, comical, and spirited stories that were once shared among my ancestors - my appreciation cannot be expressed. I read the collection to my daughter practically every night (per her request - she's two) and there is no book that makes me feel quite this proud. The stories are in the tradition of oral storytelling - teaching as well as entertaining. If you are interested in a book that performs these duties and keeps your children asking for more, then Adventures of Brer Rabbit and Friends is the book for you. The book is complete with the history of Brer Rabbit (an excellent, added feature) and is guaranteed to remain in your hands once your child has left your lap. Please - share these beautiful words with your children!

My name is Edward Welch, I read the book about Brer Rabbit and Friends while I was sitting in a speical place. It made me laugh because Brer Rabbit was always trying to fool people. He always played jokes on people, but he got caught.

I learn a lesson to always be careful because you can get into alot of trouble by fooling others. We should always helping and share with others.

I want to know if you are going to write another book soon?
I am sharing my book with my friends. They like it very much. One of my friends mother said she is going to get it for a present.

Please keep writing books.

Edward

People of any age enjoy hearing a good story. What a beautiful tradition of oral storytelling Karima Amin has brought back for us in her retelling of Brer Rabbit and Friends.
Listening to the escapades of each animal friend, my 3 year old grandson sat entranced. With each trottety-trot, lippity-clippety, buckity-buck, and bookity-bookity, he moved to the rhythm of the animals as he rubbed their life-like illustrations. His mom was just as entranced as she recalled the stories I used to tell her. The rhythm in this book is like a lullaby, warm and soothing with enough dialect to savour southern tradition yet easy to read and appreciate.

Amin has given us Brer Rabbit of the 21st century. He is forever sly, cunning and humorous; but the plantation stereotype and negative images have been suitably dropped.

As an adult, reading to my grandson, I especially like Amin"s "Tales from Africa" and "Meet the Animals" sections at the end of her book. They afford me concise, informative history and environmental lessons to share with my grandson as he and I enjoy listening to Brer Rabbit's escapades for years to come.

Great presentation of these tales does a super job of helping young readers appreciate how these humorous stories of an underdog beating the odds helped to uplift.

` The Adventures of Brer Rabbit and Friends' is a short but attractive book of short stores that make excellent bed time stories for kids, or pleasant light hearted reading for the big kid in all of us. It has a wonderful map on the inside of Brer Rabbits world and the settings for the stories, before going on the stories themselves. This has ten wonderfully illustrated stories featuring Brer Rabbit and an assortment of other animals, as well as a section at the end about African stories (which these were based on) and another section about the various real life animals featured. Not only are the stories in this book fun and full of adventure, but this book is also educational as well without it being dry or off putting; therefore perfect for kids. If you enjoyed these stories as a child then this is a great way to introduce them to your own children and if you just want to relive happy memories then this is a great place for you to go as well.

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I got this book for my mom because I remember her reading me Brer Rabbit stories when I was a kid. She always loved the book, but unfortunately, her copy of the book disappeared, so I thought I would get this for her. The book is great, but it is rewritten so that young kids can better understand what is being said. (Brer Rabbit isn't known for his excellent English.) This will be great for my mom to read to young grand babies (when they arrive), but I think I will look for a copy of the original book for my mom (and for when the kids get old enough to really appreciate the book.) Long review short, great book, especially for young kids, but this version is not exactly what I was looking for.

OK.....so here I am.......the author.....writing a review for MY book. My Brer Rabbit first came into the world eight years ago and I'm still very proud of him. Of all the stories for children that I've written, the Brer Rabbit stories are the best and my favorites. I get a special joy out of seeing so many children and adults get a kick out of hearing and reading Brer Rabbit's stories. I am a performing storyteller so I have the opportunity to share these stories often, out loud, entering Brer Rabbit's world and sharing with my audience what I see and feel. I become that rabbit, that fox, that bear, et al and I bring my audience right along with me. The stories in this book, especially when read aloud, with take you into Brer Rabbit's world where you are truly welcomed and the FUN is non-stop. ENJOY!