• HOME
  • NEWS BRIEFS
  • IN DEPTH
  • KIDS CORNER
    • Contribute
    • Account Administration
  • BOOK SHELF
  • ABOUT
    • Partners Page
    • Contributor Profiles
    • Blog
    • Parents and Teachers
    • Contact

Beastly Tales from Here and There

9/25/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
Picture

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.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Featured

    Picture
    Read Review

    Browse Books
    Book Shelf

    By Grade
    Grade 2
    Grade 3 
    Grade 4 
    Grade 5
    Grade 6
    Grade 7

    By Genre

    Fantasy
    Fiction
    Graphic Novel
    Historical Fiction
    Non Fiction
    Poetry



    RSS Feed

KidSenz.com is certified by the kidSAFE Seal Program.
Copyright © 2013-2015 KidSenz. All rights Reserved

Site Info

Terms of use
Privacy Policy

Company

About
Contact us