Customer Reviews

The Favorite Uncle Remus

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I remember as a child sitting at my grandmother's lap and listening to her read me my father's worn copy of the Uncle Remus Tales and I fell in love with the way Brer Rabit outwits the stronger and faster forest animals: Brer Fox, Brer Wolf, and Brer Bear. I loved it so much that I majored in English emphasising in Southern Literature in general and Joel Chandler Harris (the book's author) specifically. A note of warning however, the dialect in this copy is that of the antebellum slave dialect and it takes a little getting used to. But all in all a great book, which is unfortuantely overlooked in our politcally correct era. Too bad!

My only exposure to Uncle Remus as a child came, sadly, from the cutsie cartoon by Disney. These are not light fairy stories of a zip-a-dee-doo-dah nature - they are paradigm stories that illuminate the human condition as seen through the clear eyes of a poor but wise old slave. You will not find self-esteem or political correctness here, but instead raw and ancient truth.

The real Uncle Remus of Mr. Harris was one of the most pleasant suprises of my adult intellectual life. These are timeless tales of the human condition that transcend any one place, people group or era. Some goes up, some goes down. Just one 'simmon more. When a big man like me wants a chaw terbacker whar he qwine to spit? Fate, greed, pride. These are themes worthy of a toddler's bedtime story, yet fit for the mature reader to ponder over a glass of beer. I read the three little pigs FOR my children. I would read Remus had I no children at all. The insights of Remus constantly remind me our the sayings of my own father, a white working-class man from upstate New York. The basic plot of "Agin the law" is told in rural Korea as "The man and the Tiger". It matters little if the man becomes brother rabbit and the tiger brother wolf, the insight into sinful human nature remains the same world over in authentic folk tradition before Freud and Darwin. Our age, so enamoured with recent myths like Gaia and a world before patriarchy, desperately needs the old wisdom. You can find it in Uncle Remus.

Yet as one should expect from such tales, the broadest universals are presented in the homey form of the most simple particulars. Read these outloud, and you will feel the pulse of the African-American slave. Feel his realism, his cynicism, his optimism too - but don't miss his healthy relationship with "the boy", who eats the stories eagerly. In a day when ghetto illiteracy is glorified as "ebonics", how ironic that the slave dialect is pushed under the rug. I ran accross a copy of the complete Uncle Remus - retold by some politically correct rapist of art who makes the slave speak proper English. Miss Meadows even becomes "miz", a crass perversion that is no mere update of Uncle Remus' grammar, but a shameless violation of his world-view. In Remus, the Sisters are miss or missus. They keep house while the Brothers garden, hunt, build and bargain. God keep us from ever returning to unjust slavery; but we could use a dose of the realism and stability that allowed old black slaves to speak with authority and wisdom - and allowed white children like Mr. Harris to sit as scholars of the philosopher-slaves.

Since I've had my boys, I've read lots of children's literature. This is the ONE book I wish I had had as a child. Read it often and with relish.

A great book! The hilarious adventures of Brer Rabbit and his friends teach children the basics of psychology in a fun way! No kid should be wihtout it.

The Uncle Remus stories are classic American literature. We all enjoy the stories even when they are rewritten in Standard English. However, to really appreciate the richness and beauty of these classic tales there is no substitute for Harris' rendition. It takes practice to read them, but what fun!

Although I knew this book would be extremely heavy in its dialect, I just had to buy the thing; and I don't regret doing so in the least. The constant misspellings and poor use of grammar add a lot more authenticity to the story than a modern English version ever could in my opinion. Shakespeare isn't updated. Why should Harris be?

The stories themselves are what you'd expect. Brer Rabbit (and occassionally Brer Tarrypin) play tricks on "de udder creetures," either for a good laugh or to escape being eaten. Most of the stories rely heavily on the unsurpassed gullibility of the creatures they encounter. Brer Rabbit might as well say, "Hey, look over there," in half the stories to make his escape - the creatures are so gullible.

In one story, Brer Rabbit offers Brer Fox a B.S. explanation of how carts with big wheels on one end and small wheels on the other squeeze together when they ride along, and drop money on the road. Of course Brer Fox buys it, and follows said carts around hoping to make a quick buck.

In another story, Brer Fox pretends to be dead, hoping to catch Brer Rabbit for his supper. Brer Rabbit says he doesn't think Brer Fox is dead, because Brer Fox isn't shouting "Wahoo!" like other dead folks do. Of course, Brer Fox says "Wahoo!" to avoid suspicion and Brer Rabbit is smart enough to run away.

This book reminds me of an ancient Tom and Jerry cartoon series. Brer Fox gets hurt in all kinds of ways because of Brer Rabbit and it's funny. He gets stung by bees and wasps, laughed at by girls, attacked by a wildcat, thrown around by a horse, trapped in a box, and beaten by his wife. Also, in one of my favorite stories, Brer Rabbit dresses him up in a saddle and rides him around like a mule.

I know this book is controversial, but it didn't seem all that racist to me. I did see the 'n' word, but I could count the number of times it appears in the text on one hand. Perhaps the dialect itself is racist, but didn't poor white guys in this time period speak in the same way? I'm not sure.

You know, I can't figure out how the Tar Baby story became so popular. I guess it may be because it's one of the very few stories where Brer Rabbit is actually fooled. However I must admit that there were quite a few stories in this collection I enjoyed far more than the Tar Baby one. "All the Grapes in the Neighborhood" is probably my favorite.

Towards the end of the collection, the characters start getting killed off. They're not killed off in any consistent way though, because Brer Fox is actually killed twice. Brer Possum gets burned in a fire, and Brer Wolf is scorched to death after being locked in a chest. The last three stories are EXCEEDINGLY dark, with Brer Rabbit laughing at multiple creature beheadings. Although he causes all kinds of mischief throughout the book, he's absolutely impish in the last three chapters. "Bookay," the third to last one, is probably the very strangest of them all. A cow lets Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit walk inside of its mouth to cut meat, and after being warned not to touch the haslett, Brer Rabbit hacks it anyway, killing the cow. Whether he does this on purpose or not is unclear, but after Brer Fox dies in the cow's guts, Brer Rabbit actually takes Brer Fox's head and gives it to the fox's wife to cook for dinner. Absolutely Bizarre. Talk about little known Brer Rabbit facts.

I loved this collection from start to finish. By the fourth story, I knew I'd finish the whole thing. There are sixty stories in all, some of which look very much alike. Yet I can't imagine getting bored reading this book. Highly recommended.

I also heard these stories first from my grandmother and was delighted and enthralled. I was 4 or 5. Therefore I was dismayed when I took my beloved book to school for my 2nd grade teacher to read to find that she couldn't make head nor tail of it. Writing in dialect is so difficult and reading it requires a certain understanding of what's being said. And these stories were meant to be heard. If it creates a problem for you, I reccommend some other form of these stories.

That said I must weigh in on the side of those who find the stories both charming and profound. All you have to do is look at some of the messes our government has gotten us into to "get" the story of the tarbaby. We are so totally guilty of hitting the other guy with each weapon we have until we are stuck fast and cannot escape. Now if we could only figure out how to work the briar patch part. Most of the other stories illustrate similar truths. Pride goes before a fall. All that glitters isn't gold. There's no free ride. You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Great moral tales that go down easily and provoke thought.

Somewhere you have to explain that much of the language is not appropriate today - that many of the words in the stories have come to have ugly meanings, so we don't use them any more. Children can handle that. So can some adults.
Enjoy.
jlb

I read two Uncle Remus stories to a fifth grade classroom as part of community reading day.I am a retired teacher and always read as many kinds of stories to my class as I could.Reading about Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox using the Gullah voice always charmed and enticed my class. These are wonderful tales that we associate with the African tradition but after some research I learned that they are actually Cherokee and Cree stories that must have been shared with slaves as they both have strong oral traditions of storytelling.I gifted the book to the class in the hope that some will come to love and appreciate these stories enough to read them to their children.

It appeaars that this book, Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus, is the first transcription of black culture's folk tales about Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox et al into mainstream culture in a book. Harris found ways to spell the words such that when you read -- you find yourself speaking/telling the story with that old time Black/African American dialect. This adds tremendously to the delight and richness of the stories. The dialect is key to bringing out the humor and wisdom in the stories and and creating the characters. And it is delightful. And the drawings too - - they're just perfect; they too represent the characters better than larger more elaborate storybook art.
I first heard these stories as a child when my dad read to me. I wanted the book to read to my grandchildren but kept finding these modernized, abstract, generalized Uncle Remus books that had none of the dialect, little of the dialogue - sappy, limp and lifeless. I was sooo glad when I finally figured out that Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus was the one I wanted - - and that it was still in print!! By the way, my grandkids LOVE it - - precisely because of the dialect, the humor and the wisdom that comes through in it. Even though they're just 5 and 7 years old -- they "get" it !-)

I enjoyed this book when I was a child. I purchased it to pass the joy of these rich stories on to my grandchildren. In re-reading the stories I tried to understand the current prediliction to classify them as racially insensitive. As a child my thoughts about uncle Remus were positive. He felt like a comfortable relative with a country accent and point of view. This is the image I will pass on to my grandchildren.

Great book. original language, so it takes a bit to get used to and even interpret for young ones, but its worth the original flavor. There are a lot more stories than I've seen before which I'm glad for as my grandkids keep wanting more.