From Publishers Weekly
Dobrin, an educator specializing in ethics, presents a menagerie of critters in stories designed to introduce lessons about friendship, loyalty, honesty and tolerance. Many of these 13 brief tales have a familiar ring. The Kindness of Squirrels, for example, owes a debt to the Talmudic tale of two brothers who secretly bring gifts of food to each others homes; in Boris, Natasha, and the Giant Beet, the author retells the well-known Russian folktale of the smallest family member extracting a giant root vegetable (recent picture book examples are The Giant Carrot; The Gigantic Turnip, etc.). A readers previous knowledge of the tales, however, works in Dobrins favor, since he often digresses from the story line with wordy descriptions, and never attributes the stories to their original sources. His opening A Note to Parents describes these as fables, yet rather than ending with a pithy moral, he closes each tale with a family/group discussion starter (e.g., a story about an overly protective mother bee who insists that her son wear so many outer clothes that he cannot fly, follows with Parents often worry about their children. Why do you think Duncans mother had him wear so many clothes?). Rogerss (Snow Angel) muted watercolors feature an anthropomorphic cast that includes a giraffe sporting a Hawaiian shirt in his garden and cats shopping and talking on the phone. Readers will likely need a spoonful of sugar to make this moral medicine go down. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 3-Dobrin's 13 fables explore such themes as concern for others, sharing, honesty, accepting differences, stubbornness, and freedom. In a note to parents, the author suggests that adults encourage children to discuss the stories freely and to come to their own conclusions. Indeed, instead of a moral, each fable ends with a question to spark discussion. Rogers's watercolor illustrations, executed in muted tones, depict animals filled with personality and add a good deal to the stories. However, some of the selections add a confusing element. For example, a story about a koala that tries to return found money is complicated by the introduction of a wombat that professes to have lost twice the amount recovered and accuses the youngster of stealing. In addition, several of these fables are taken, without acknowledgment, from well-known folktales (e.g., "The Kindness of Squirrels" is much like the Jewish folktale, "Two Brothers," and "Boris, Natasha, and the Giant Beet" is a version of "The Turnip"). Unless you have call for such a special collection, stick with Aesop and the folktales themselves.
Marianne Saccardi, Norwalk Community-Technical College, CTCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
