Audio Cassettes

1980 "The Crow and the Pitcher." Use with the book. Society for Visual Education, Inc. $1.39 from Barb Daniels, Lebanon , OR , through eBay, March, '04. This tape presents with several voices exactly the words of the book of the same title and year. The tape runs just over five minutes. There are a few sound effects. The tape has been well used. The pitcher answers back when the crow says that she wants the water. In fact, the artist works hard to give the pitcher strong facial expressions. The not-so-swift pitcher opines that tossing pebbles to get water makes no sense. The pitcher is smart enough to notice at the end of the story that he is stuck with all the pebbles! I also have the book.

1980 "The Fox and the Crow." Use with the book. Society for Visual Education, Inc. $1.39 from Barb Daniels, Lebanon , OR , through eBay, March, '04. This tape presents with several voices exactly the words of the book of the same title and year. The tape runs five minutes. There are a few sound effects. Vocal quality is good on this tape. The "caw" is particularly good here. This fox does the flattery of the female crow well. He starts with compliments on general beauty and feathers, and then moves on to the crow's eyes and her virtues. Only then does he move on to her voice. The crow moves down closer to hear his flattering whispers. I also have the book.

1980 "The Fox and the Grapes." Use with the book. Society for Visual Education, Inc. $1.39 from Barb Daniels, Lebanon OR , through eBay, March, '04. This tape presents with several voices exactly the words of the book of the same title and year. The tape runs just under five minutes. There are a few sound effects. The tape has been well used. The vocal quality is sometimes poor. At one point in his leaping he touches the grapes. He tries to leap at them ten times. The fox admits at the end that the grapes look and smell good but claims that they do not taste good. "Good-bye, sour grapes," he says at the end. The narrator says that the fox hated something because he could not get it. I also have the book.

1991 "The Mice's Thanksgiving." The Broadway Local Theater. American Radio Company. Garrison Keillor narrator. November, 1991. Recorded by Rev. Edward W. Bodnar, S.J. 10:15. A great rendition of TMCM. The voices and vocal effects are excellent. Some great wit. An uptown express sewer carries the mice during TV commercials! The "Voice of Reason" and the "country mouse" are especially good characters. Keillor is a great narrator. "It's not the city but me, isn't it?" "You're the mousiest guy I ever knew." A trap gets Randy, and with a punishing pun Keillor has him buried in a mausoleum.

1988 [Korean]. (Aesop's Fables). For use with two volumes of Aesop's Fables published 1990 and 1989, respectively, by Mun Gong Sa in Seoul. Bibliographical information on cassette in Hangu. $2.10 on street near Eastgate in Seoul, June, '90. Good orchestral music backs up spirited and varied reading in Korean, complete with good animal voices.

1995 A Call to Character Tape One: A Family Treasury of stories, poems, plays, proverbs, and fables to guide the development of values for you and your children. Colin Greer & Herbert Kohl, editors. Performed by Frankie Faison and Karen Allen. Made in USA. NY: Harper Audio: HarperCollins Publishers. $3.99 from Book Express Online through Bibliofind, August, '97. See my comments on the book of the same title and year, from which these selections are taken. I was disappointed that only a few fable materials are taken: on this first tape only the morals from student fables collected by Kohl (34; e.g. "Better to be old than bold!") and two other short materials on the second tape. The tape itself made delightful listening as I drove across Nebraska to attend Sarah FitzSimmons' wedding! The selections represent a noble effort to engage parents and their children in the discussion of values well depicted in classic literature. The tape may include a little too much preaching outside the literature itself. Still, it was a pleasure to hear!   1995 A Call to Character Tape Two: A Family Treasury of stories, poems, plays, proverbs, and fables to guide the development of values for you and your children. Colin Greer & Herbert Kohl, editors. Performed by Frankie Faison and Karen Allen. Made in USA. NY: Harper Audio: HarperCollins Publishers. $3.99 from Book Express Online through Bibliofind, August, '97. See my comments both on the book of the same title and year, from which these selections are taken, and on Tape One. I was disappointed that only a few fable materials are taken: one selection on the first tape and two short materials here: Aesop's "The Lion and the Boar" (269) retold by Ann McGovern and, in the section on responsibility, "Fable" reported as anonymous (333). This latter is really Perry #36 with an oracle instead of the old man here asked whether what two young people hold in their hands is dead or alive.

Read by Boris Karloff. Directed by Howard Sackler. NY: Caedmon.

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.

Read by Boris Karloff. Directed by Howard Sackler. NY: Caedmon.

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.

Read by Anton Lesser. 79 minutes. Naxos Audio Books. NA 120714. Junior Classics. Selected and produced by Nicolas Soames. Edited by Sara Butcher.

1984? Aesop's Fables. Dramatized on cassette with actors, music and sound effects. Waldentapes: Stanford, CT. Thirty minutes of well done stories. Good varied sound effects. Well read. Maybe twenty stories. The translation seems to be that of Joseph Jacobs. I like these!