  |  Title: Beastly Tales from Here and There Poet: Vikram Seth Illustrator: Ravi Shankar Publisher: Viking/Penguin Genre: Poetry/Verse Age Range: 9+ Grade Level: 4 and up |
What is the book about?
Ten brilliantly comic animal fables told in verse. Yes, verse.
Verse!?
Don't worry. The fables are easy-to-read, rhyme wonderfully (in couplets), and are full of wicked twists. They are splendid. Really.
Read this excerpt from "The Frog and the Nightingale" to see if you vibe with this sort of verse:
Once upon a time a frog
Croaked away in Bingle Bog.
Every night from dusk to dawn
He croaked awn and awn and awn.
Other creatures loathed his voice,
But, alas, they had no choice,
And the crass cacophony
Blared out from the sumac tree
At whose foot the frog each night
Minstrelled on till morning light."
What do you think?
What other animal characters does one meet in this volume?
They are a motley bunch. Among others, you will meet a henpecked crocodile ("Greeny-brown with gentle grin"), a snake ("Gold and shiny, vicious, long/Venom-fanged, hypnotic, strong-"), a prima donna hare, a slow-and-steady tortoise, a gluttonous pair of goat and ram, and even a tragopan (a kind of a pheasant, in case you are wondering). There are many more. All are quirky. All are fun.
Where do the fables come from?
The ten tales included here come from many different oral/folklore traditions. Two come from India, two from China, two from Greece, two from Ukraine, and two, as the poet puts it, "came directly... from the Land of Gup." All are ingeniously told- or retold.
Ten brilliantly comic animal fables told in verse. Yes, verse.
Verse!?
Don't worry. The fables are easy-to-read, rhyme wonderfully (in couplets), and are full of wicked twists. They are splendid. Really.
Read this excerpt from "The Frog and the Nightingale" to see if you vibe with this sort of verse:
Once upon a time a frog
Croaked away in Bingle Bog.
Every night from dusk to dawn
He croaked awn and awn and awn.
Other creatures loathed his voice,
But, alas, they had no choice,
And the crass cacophony
Blared out from the sumac tree
At whose foot the frog each night
Minstrelled on till morning light."
What do you think?
What other animal characters does one meet in this volume?
They are a motley bunch. Among others, you will meet a henpecked crocodile ("Greeny-brown with gentle grin"), a snake ("Gold and shiny, vicious, long/Venom-fanged, hypnotic, strong-"), a prima donna hare, a slow-and-steady tortoise, a gluttonous pair of goat and ram, and even a tragopan (a kind of a pheasant, in case you are wondering). There are many more. All are quirky. All are fun.
Where do the fables come from?
The ten tales included here come from many different oral/folklore traditions. Two come from India, two from China, two from Greece, two from Ukraine, and two, as the poet puts it, "came directly... from the Land of Gup." All are ingeniously told- or retold.
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