Tales of Uncle Remus: The Adventures of Brer Rabbit By Julius Lester
Actually this is an audiobook, which is perfect, because I tried reading the original and the dialect was so complicated as to make it unreadable. The reader does a beautiful blend of modernizing the narration with the original dialogue, so you get the feel of the original stories without what we think of as the offensive dialect.
I feel like the Brer Rabbit stories are an important part of our nation's history--besides just good fun--and wanted to share them with my kids. They couldn't get enough of Brer Rabbit's exploits even when I tired of them! What I didn't realize was how much Bugs Bunny is like Brer Rabbit. I'd like to find out more about if BB was modeled on him. Paperback We borrowed the complete tales from the library and thoroughly enjoyed it. Even a couple years later, my children remembered the stories and wanted me to read them again. Now we have our own copy that I'm going to pull out every February.
It's a wonderful thing and part of our American heritage. Everyone should be as familiar with these stories as with Greek myths and Brothers Grimm. Paperback Julies Lester and Jerry Pinkney retell the marvelous tales of Uncle Remus with the same sly sense of humor and with the addition of some modern detalis (references to shopping malls and such). I listened to the audio version, which I highly recommend. It kept me laughing out loud even as I spent the day hauling around boxes of heavy textbooks. Paperback Lester has taken the beloved African-American folktales of Joel Chandler Harris and rewritten them slightly. The tales still contain the wonderful tales of Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and company. Lester has merely taken the dialect that was so difficult for most of us in the original and made it a little more understandable for modern readers. While not as good as the original, this little book is a great introduction to the real thing. Enjoy! Paperback I loved this book! The narrator and all the animals talk like deep South African Americans. It's great. The narrator uses lots of great similes. So far the stories (no more than 2 pages long at a time) are little tales of Brer Rabbit outsmarting, tricking, and causing mischief with all the other animals, like Brer Fox, Brer Wolf, etc. He's quite a little menace, but the tales are hilarious and sometimes have little morals at the end. I keep seeing scenes from Splash Mountain in my head, especially when Brer Rabbit pleads, Please don't throw me in the Briar Patch! Paperback
I hesitated for a long time before taking on this book from the 1001 Children's Books You Must Read list. I knew there was great controversy about it. When I did decide to read it (or rather, as I did, listen to the audio of it), I chose a version written by black folklorist and literature professor, Julius Lester, who saw the Uncle Remus stories as important records of black folklore. Lester rewrote the stories in an effort to elevate the subversive elements over the purportedly racist ones. I was also interested to see that black author Ralph Ellison said about this work, Aesop and Uncle Remus had taught us that comedy is a disguised form of philosophical instruction; and especially when it allows us to glimpse the animal instincts lying beneath the surface of our civilized affectations.
Julius Lester also read this version of the stories. Paperback Not quite the Uncle Remus I remembered, but every bit as enjoyable. Some fun updates for modern times all in a casual manner. If you're unfamiliar with these tales, think Aesop's Fables but a lot more fun. Breir Rabbit is certainly not the best role model which is a large part of the fun. Very well narrated by the author. He's got a great voice for it & I chuckled along. Highly recommended.
Paperback I remember as a child being told these stories of Brer Rabbit at a tea party. I loved the stories. I found this book and I was excited to read them. I think they do better when read aloud or told as a story. They are a little 2 dimensional on the page.
Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby is one of the many stories in this collection. I do love that movie and I remember seeing Song of the South in theatres and I loved this short so much. It was good to read, real straight forward. I read this out loud to my niece and nephew and they both thought it was funny too.
Some of the tales form a continuous story, but most of them are just a few pages and done. They are little folktales and teaching lessons. They were too short and I got tired of reading such short stories. It just wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be.
Brer Rabbit is a trickster archetype. He is able to convince people to do anything he wants them to, just like Tom Sawyer, even if it sounds so stupid. He can get out of any fix and he can outwit any of his prey. In several stories he kills Brer fox or Brer Wolf and Brer Bear, sometimes more than one story has him killing them. It was never graphic. I don't know why, I just didn't enjoy this as an adult the way I did as a kid.
I know we are supposed to root for Brer Rabbit, but he seemed rather mean to me and he got into it with everyone. He is a crazy maker and that gets old to me. There is a story with a Turtle and that's the only time I think he lost in these stories. That wasa good one.
From what I gather, these tales are collected back in the 1800s from slaves and these were tales they brought with them. Someone wrote them down and published them.
I'm still glad I read this classic. Paperback One third of the way into this read aloud, my youngest child leaned over and said, “What page are we on?”
I looked down and said, “Fifty-one. Why?”
She said, “Because you're reading it too fast. Slow down.”
I wasn't surprised. I mean. . . really. Have you read this?
Before I go any further, I want to clarify something: this particular rendition of THE TALES OF UNCLE REMUS isn't “your grandmother's Br'er Rabbit stories.”
Now, I don't know exactly what that means, because I honestly don't remember which version I grew up with myself, but I do want to clarify that this is a publication from 1987 by writer/educator/folklorist, Julius Lester:
And the famous children's book illustrator, Jerry Pinkney:
There's quite a bit of controversy surrounding these stories, and I can't comment on that, but I can tell you that this version is HILARIOUS.
Julius Lester's Voice is spot-on, and I'd like to give you a little taste of it:
When Brer Rabbit wasn't getting in and out of trouble, he was courting. Miz Meadows had a sister, Miz Motts, and she moved down from Philly-Me-York. Brer Rabbit decided to court both of them. Now don't come asking me about Brer Rabbit's family arrangements. How folks arranges their families is their business. Ain't yours and it definitely ain't mine.
Courting back in them days ain't like it is now. Well, wait a minute. Come to think of it, I don't know how it is now, being a married man. But back in my time, you took a girl to a restaurant and spent some money; then you took her to a movie show or something like that and spent some more money. She goes home happy and you go home broke.
And, well, that's basically how the whole book goes.
My daughter and I laughed and laughed and laughed. I particularly liked how Mr. Lester kept insinuating himself into the often nonsensical aspects of the story.
We got our copy from the library, and I honestly can't even believe that this much entertainment was free.
What an excellent start to the Year of the Rabbit. Paperback I listened to the audio recording of these delightful tales - performed by the author. This was basically a perfect read aloud collection. Paperback
The classic tales of Brer Rabbitt with a contemporary twist, by the award winning author Julius Lester and illustrated by award-winning Jerry Pinkney!
Whether he is besting Brer Fox or sneaking into Mr. Man's garden, Brer Rabbit is always teaching a valuable lesson. These classic tales are full of wit, humor, and creativity, and Julius Lester brings an added contemporary sense to these forty-eight timeless stories.
Lester juxtaposes a contemporary voice and settings (like shopping malls) with some dialect in these wonderfully funny folktales,--Publisher's Weekly
Tales of Uncle Remus: The Adventures of Brer Rabbit