2001 The Value of Friends/The Best of Friends. Oakland: Jataka Tales for Children: Dharma Publishing.
This CD-Rom, produced together with a coloring book containing the texts, presents the stories in two booklets with these same titles, published in 1990 and 1989, respectively. There are several voices, music, and good sound effects. The LC blurb for "The Value of Friends" is accurate: the hawk and his family are made aware of the value of friendship when their friends the osprey, the lion, and the tortoise save them from hungry country folk. In "The Best of Friends," a Great Being, in the form of a woodpecker, frees a lion from a bone caught in his throat. They encounter each other later when the woodpecker is hungry and the lion has just made a kill. The lion dismisses the woodpecker. The latter will not, however, get revenge, as he tells a sky fairy. He explains that "He helped the lion in order to end his pain, not to gain a reward." The woodpecker adds that he counts as friends everyone he meets.
1930? 7" white plate from Sarreguemines, France. Inside a 1.5" rim there is a representation of Grandville's "The Two Rats, the Fox and the Egg." The front carries two inscriptions: "Fables de la Fontaine" and "7. Les Deux Rats le Renard et l'Oeuf." The back has a "Digoin" stamp.
This is among the most successful illustrations in this series. A good illustration is distinctly portrayed. The egg looms rightly large on the rat's belly. The fox peeks around a corner.
1930? 7" white plate from Sarreguemines, France. Inside a 1.5" rim there is an adaptation of J.J. Grandville's "The Two Rats and the Egg" (X 1). The front carries two inscriptions: "Fables de la Fontaine" and "Les Deux Rats, le Renard et l'Oeuf." The back has "Fables de la Fontaine" and "Digoin/Sarreguemines/France." $33 from Brown Pelican Antiques, Panama City, FL, May, '99.
This illustration uses Grandville for the basic form of the two rats and the egg, but changes the forest of the book engraving into a bit of vegetation and an opening through which the fox can peer at the scene. The work is not quite as distinct as the GA in the same series.
1992 The Town Rat and the Country Rat. By Jean de la Fontaine. A Coloring Book. Illustrations by Mary-Margaret Dupin.
This class-assignment creative work matches lively computer-generated designs of mice with a summary of La Fontaine's fable. One of a kind!
1964? the tortoise and the hare/the little white duck. 45 rpm Mr. Pickwick Extended Play Record. No singers or composer acknowledged. Woodbury, NY: Pickwick International. $.05 at flea market, 1991.
TH lasts 3:21. It seems like vintage "Hit Paraders" music: cute, silly, bubbly, harmless. If there were not a zip code on the jacket, I would have guessed the date of production to be 10 years earlier. The rabbit in this version keeps thinking he can always catch up, and he enjoys many diversions.
1985? The Tortoise and the Hare/Hill of Fire. Reading Rainbow. TH: illustration by Janet Stevens. Narrated by Gilda Radner. Hosted by Levar Burton. Hill of Fire: Author Thomas P. Lewis. Illustrator Joan Sandin. Hosted by Levar Burton. Stamford, CT: Children's Video Library 1555. $9.50 from George Minkalis, Round Lake, IL, through Ebay, Nov., '00.
This is a complex video that brings together many things, even within the separate stories that it presents. Burton is training for a bicycle race, and the story supports him. Little children give various morals. The whole TH segment lasts perhaps twelve minutes. The TH segment proper within that uses stills from Stevens' book. The one time that I notice something done perhaps for the video presentation occurs when the sleeping rabbit opens his eye.
2008 The Tortoise and the Hare: The Rematch of the Century. DVD. The Jim Henson Company. Alliance Films: The Weinstein Company. 76 minutes.
Here is a feature film using the voices of Jay Leno, Dannuy Glover, and others. Special features include "How to Draw a Character" and "The Making of Tortoise vs. Hare." I thoroughly enjoyed watching the whole animated feature. It pits the families, now neighbors, against each other in the "Mount Impossible Adventure Race" fifteen years after Walter Tortoise beat Murray Hare. Murray keeps running into the dreaded "Slow and steady wins the race" statement. The adventure race has many twists and turns, including a surprise winner. The start and finish are provided by two stork sports announcers, Rex and Bob, who report throughout. Good fun, based on the fable. Part of a trilogy including "Goldilocks" and "Three Pigs and a Baby."
1930? 7" white plate from Sarreguemines, France. Inside a 1.5" rim there is a representation of Grandville's TH. The front carries two inscriptions: "Fables de la Fontaine" and "9. Le Lievre et la Tortue." The back has a "Digoin" stamp.
The tortoise is just crossing a visible finish wire as the hare, with head averted to the side, tries to overtake him. A mouse is perched on a rock at the finish line.
1930? 7" white plate from Sarreguemines, France. Inside a 1.5" rim there is a portrayal of TH. The front carries two inscriptions: "Fables de la Fontaine" and "Le Lievre et la Tortue." The back has, in sketchy form, "Fables de la Fontaine" and "Digoin/Sarreguemines, France." $20 from Dany Wolfs, Roesalare, Belgium, Sept., '00. One extra exemplar.
The conception of the scene here has, by contrast with other plates in the series, nothing to do with Grandville's original. The plate presents a dark and busy scene. The scene itself, and particularly the tortoise are not easy to take in. A mouse perches clumsily at the upper right.
