Individual Cassettes

To hear a fable read by Boris Karloff, go to Internet Archives and listen.

1967 Aesop's Fables. Read by Boris Karloff. Directed by Howard Sackler. NY: Caedmon. $5 at the Puzzle Box, Dec., '86. One extra copy.

Twenty-one fables on each side. Karloff's reading is sensitive but surprisingly low-keyed. The texts, whose author I cannot identify, seem classic, pithy, well expressed. This tape is clearer than the 78 rpm record of the same production.

1985 The Wisdom of Aesop. Produced and adapted by John Hohmann. Designed by Janet Albrecht. Illustrations by Dominick Giustino. Storytelling by Carl Grapentine. NY: Beanstalk Productions. $3.99 at a toy store in Chicago, April, '88.

Rather blasé by comparison with other tapes. Two voices, limited sound effects, especially of animals in the forest or barnyard. Not exceptionally well done.

1985 More Aesop Fables. Produced and adapted by John Hohmann. Designed by Janet Albrecht. Illustrations by Dominick Giustino. Storytelling by Carl Grapentine. NY: Beanstalk Productions. $3.99 at a toy store in Chicago, April, '88.

Second in a series following The Wisdom of Aesop. The same in effect.

1986 Aesop's Fables. Read by Gordon Fairclough et al. For use with Collected Tales from Aesop's Fables. Manufactured in Taiwan. Gallery Books: Smith Publishers: Victoria House Publishing. Extra copy with Collected Tales from Aesop's Fables published by Joshua Morris Publishing for a combined price of $ 1.99 from Hope Gilmore, Jackson NJ , through eBay, August, '05. 

Fine collection. Good readers. Some use of unison voices. Piano, organ, drum, clattering dishes. Follows book verbatim. "The Raven and the Cheese" may be best for audio-visual use. I apparently found my first copy of the cassette independent of the book.  The second copy came pasted to the back of the Morris book.

1986 Tales from Aesop. Reader not acknowledged. Recorded to accompany booklet of the same name by J.P. Miller. NY: Random House. $4.95 with booklet at Children's Bookstore, Chicago, Sept., '91.

Two sides, one for listening and one for reading along; the difference seems to be page-turning signals in the latter. One good voice with nicely varied orchestral background, including the frog's explosion. The tape exactly reproduces the book's seven stories: TH, GGE, DS, BW, OF, MSA, and CP.

1986/87/88 One-Minute Bedtime Stories. "Shari Lewis tells her." Music composed and arranged by Stormy Sacks with Lan O'Kun. NY: Caedmon. $7.95 at Turtle Park Toys, DC, Dec., '92.

Uses all the stories of the 1982 Doubleday book (see comments there), often in abbreviated form. Adds one fable, GA, in which the grasshopper is eating his violin when the ants finally take him inside and feed him. Also adds: "Brer Fox," "Little Red Riding Hood," "The Princess and the Island," and "The Ugly Duckling." The brief time allowed each tale hurts the other stories, but the fables are well done.

1987 juliette et les fables de la fontaine vol 1. Hélène Ray. Illustration de Karine Georgel. Paperbound. Paris: tire lire poche: magnard jeunesse: magnard. $5 from Seizethebid on ebay, Dec., '03.

Here a cassette-tape and a book go well together. Juliette describes experiences in school around learning four fables of La Fontaine. With good musical background, she offers explanations of various turns in each of these: MM, FC, "Le Laboureur et ses Enfants," and FG. Georgel's art work is both plentiful and good. There are full and partial-page line drawings and colored illustrations. The reading is excellent on the cassette; it is done by Martine Regnier. The packaging -- a plastic and paper box -- for both book and tape is all but destroyed. I will keep the tape and book together.

1987? El Ratón de Ciudad y el Ratón de Campo. Peralt Montagut Editions. Made in Spain by Gema, S.L. Gift of Vera Ruotolo, March, '03.

This fine rendition of TMCM lasts about four and a half minutes. It is distributed with a book of the same title done by Peralt Montagut Editions: Imajen. As I mention there, the guest is not just from the city but from the court. The country mouse offers better fare than in most versions. A dog, a cat, and servants menace. There are three voices here. The tape follows the book's text carefully.

1988  Die Stadtmaus und die Feldmaus. Made in Spain. Distributed with the 1987? book of the same name. ©Peralt Montagut Verlag. Together $9.95 at europa books, Chicago, March, '95.

A good four-minute version, the same on both sides, featuring a musical introduction, sound effects, and various voices. A confusion arises for me when one of the readers changes the text's male to female (Freund to Freundin) during the reading. The mice are pictured as male, I believe, and the English treats them both as male. Here both mouse-voices sound female, and it seems that this reference makes the country-mouse into a female. Part of the problem is that German mice are female, as the title indicates.

1988 Five Famous Aesop's Fables. Adapted by Louis Untermeyer. Voices and Music by Marshall Izen. Directed by Jim Timmens. Produced by Arthur Shimkin. Previously released by Children's Records of America and Columbia Book & Record Library. A Benanty Entertainment Group, Inc., Product. NY: Children's Communications Corp. $4.50 in Oakland, Summer, '89. 11:35.

Includes FG, TH, MM, FC, and BW. The tape seems the same on both sides. One voice and music. Brief introduction at the beginning and brief moral at the end of each.

1989 Aesop's Fables. Read by Boris Karloff. Directed by Howard Sackler. NY: Caedmon. Unknown source and date.

Caedmon reproduced and repackaged their cassette of 1967.  As I wrote then, there are twenty-one fables on each side. Karloff's reading is sensitive but surprisingly low-keyed. The texts, whose author I cannot identify, seem classic, pithy, well expressed.

1989 Bedtime Stories: Fables. The Purple Balloon Players. New Rochelle, NY: Great American Audio Corp. $9.99 for a set of three tapes (including folktales and fantasy) at Kay-Bee, Dec., '93.

Good sound effects behind six stories so elaborated that they may no longer be fables. "Skywind" features the task of separating rice from sand. "Stone Soup" is, as always, a delight. "Kantchil and the Deep Hole" is about a very small deer in Indonesia. Kantchil falls into the deep hole and reads from a "magic" leaf that (1) the world ends today, (2) only those in the deep hole will be saved, and (3) anyone who sneezes must be thrown out of the hole. "How the Leopard Got Its Spots" is about a boy forgetting his magic yam and stealing it back from the animals. His mother and other clothes-dyeing women ward off the leopard with dye-covered sticks. "The Stone Cutter" wishes he were something stronger: the sun, a cloud... "The Little White Bone" finds the animals at the dawn of the world arguing over who should be the big chief. An old man produces the bone and asks which hand it is in. A little mouse wins the game and makes people the guardians of the earth our mother. There is "Go to Sleep" music at the beginning and end of each side.

1990 Aesop's Fables the Smothers Brothers Way. Words and Music by John McCarthy. Arranged and Produced by David Carroll. Smothers Brothers. Redway, CA: Music For Little People #2178. (Reproduced from 1965 original.) Gift of Linda Schlafer, April, 1992.

Identical, except for the split between the two sides, with the CD done at the same time by the same people. Again, the cassette format makes these delightful renditions even more available for use in the classroom or lecture situation. The stereo sound-balancing seems uneven at points. Seven fables are surrounded by an overture and a reprise and are interspersed with five "I'd better stay me" interludes. See comment on the original record above.

1990 The Grasshopper and the Ants. For use with 1971/77 booklet of same name. Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Educational Media Company. Walt Disney Productions. $5.95 with booklet at Stephenson's, Omaha, May, '91.

The tape features a preview of the story that looks through the first half of the pictures and breaks off before the resolution of the story. Good voices.

1991 Three Musical Fables. With music by John Rutter. The King's Singers, City of London Sinfonia, The Cambridge Singers.  Omaha: Collegium Records. Unknown source.

The three stories are "The Reluctant Dragon" with words by David Grant based on a story by Kenneth Grahame, "Brother Heinrich's Christmas" with story and music by John Rutter, and "The Wind in the Willows" with words by David Grant based on the book by Kenneth Grahame. The album is directed especially to Christmas. "Fable" here means "fairy tale." It is a real pleasure to hear both the excellent singing and the clear articulation by singers and readers. The whole production is tasteful, from text to performance. For a special treat, do not miss the sound of Toad's car in the third fable. I also have this item on compact disk.

1992  Jataka Tales. By Noor Inayat Khan. Read by Ellen Burstyn. Musical accompaniment composed by Allaudin Mathieu. From the book Twenty Jataka Tales, published by Inner Traditions International (1991). Berkeley, CA: Audio Literature. $10.95 at Bookdale's, July, '94.

See my comments on the book. Two of the last three tales there are dropped--"The End of the World" and "The Golden Goose"--so that eighteen of its twenty are read here. Burstyn reads well, and the musical background is both good and nicely varied.

1992  The Children's Aesop. Selected Fables Retold by Stephanie Calmenson. Read by Dudley Moore. Hollywood, CA: Soundelux Audio Publishing. Boxed with a book, bought by mail from The Mind's Eye for a total of $19.95, Jan., '95.

Well done! This may be the finest audio tape I have. Excellent reading backed up by good sound effects and excellent music. See my comments on the 1992 book. Moore sometimes (wisely) cuts a bit of material from Calmenson's version. Very lively reading. Just under an hour long.

1993?  La Souris de la Ville et la Souris de la Compagne; The City Mouse and the Country Mouse. (Dorothy Sword Bishop.) The Bilingual Fables. Soundtext. Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Company. $12.95 by mail with the 1978/93 book from The Mind's Eye, Feb., '95.

I ordered this one combination to get an idea of the series. I had known the books but had happened to miss this French/English version; I had not known of the tapes. The English side (about six and a half minutes) is good, but the French (about six minutes) is just wonderful! Good voice differentiation by the one speaker for the various voices and effects.

1994  Aesop's Fables. Tell Tale Theater Pop-Up Book and Audiocassette. Six classic tales narrated by Carl Reiner. Music by Marc Phillips. Made in Singapore. 22 minutes. Produced by Designimation, Philadelphia. Phladelphia: Running Press. Gift of Elizabeth Willems, Christmas, '94. Extra copy a gift of Mary Pat Ryan, Aug., '95.

An ingenious set. See my comments on the book of the same title and year. The tape's renditions are much more expansive than those in this book. (In fact, they are adaptations--for all but SW--of versions from Zorn's Aesop's Fables from Running Press in 1990.) Reiner's reading is excellent! BW is expanded and now includes some hyperbole; the wolf now eats the boy in one gulp! The tortoise has become female, and TMCM's dog has become a cat.

1994  The Animals Could Talk. Aesop's Fables Musically Retold by Heather Forest. Accompanies booklet of the same title. Running time: 42:11. Little Rock: August House Audio. $12.95 with booklet from The Story Monkey, April, '96.

Very pleasing music and storytelling. Let me quote the cassette jacket: "This modern collection of ancient fables is presented in a minstrel style of storytelling, weaving original poetry, prose, and melody together to bring old tales to life for new listeners." The last song/tale transforms BF into a fine story proclaiming "You're beautiful as you are."

1995? Aesop's Fables Tape. Produced by Chad and Terri Sagafus, QMS Productions, Douch, MO. 4504. Salem, UT: The Story Teller, Independent Story Teller Distributors. Part of a set for $17.95 including materials to create a felt book. Sonoma County Fair, Nov., '97.

I have sampled the first few fables. They are actually songs, and are well done. Good audio quality, and a nice lilt to songs. I think children would enjoy them. Eight and seven fables respectively on the two sides of the tape.

1996 Unusual Aesop's Fables. Witty Tales of Ancient Wisdom. Told by Elizabeth Gibson. Music & sound by Pete Butler. 54 minutes. Carmichael, CA: E.J.R. Gibson – Publishing. $14 from Alibris, Dec., '00. One extra copy.

I can see why this effort was winner of a "Best Audio Tape" award. To judge from the first fable, the tape brings lively narration, good guitar background, and effective alternate voices. There are eight fables, with engaging new titles: "The Kind Ant," "The Fashionable Fox," "Max and His Trusty Ax," "The Most Beautiful Bird," "The Courageous King," "The Neighbors," "Penelope and Henrietta," and "TootleLee and TootleLou."

1997 Il-Fenek u L-Fekruna u hrejjef ohra. Maltese version of The Story of the Hare and the Tortoise and other tales. Test ta' Annamarija Ciarlo? (Original by Peter Holeinone, NA?) Purchased in a set with a hardbound book by the same title. Heart Productions, in conjunction with Klabb Kotba Maltin. Maltese Liri 4.50 from Books Plus, Sliema, Malta, June, '02.

This tape includes eighty minutes worth of stories on its two sides. There is a T of C inside the box. Will this tape ever find a listener who can understand its Maltese?

2000 Aesop's Fables. Read by Anton Lesser. 79 minutes. Naxos Audio Books. NA 120714. Junior Classics. Selected and produced by Nicolas Soames. Edited by Sara Butcher. I found a German seal on this tape, but have no idea where I obtained it!

"Classic Literature with Classical Music." Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" is the accompaniment here. There is a booklet with a T of C and black-and-white drawings by Arthur Rackham. There are good sound effects, but Lesser does well on his own, for example, as a wolf devouring a lamb.

2003 I.A. Krilov: Basni (Russian).  Mi 20.  Moscow: CJSC.  $4 from argosyrus through eBay, Jan., '04.