Creighton University Archives and Special Collections

Carlson Fable Collection

Item Set

Items

• The Tiger and the Brahmin CD
  Written by Brian Gleeson. Told by Ben Kingsley. Music by Ravi Shankar and others. Drawings by Kurt Vargö. Boxed with an accompanying story poster. Rowayton, CT: Rabbit Ears Productions. $5.98 somewhere before May, '02. A lively disk. The accompanying poster has the whole text on its back. As on the audio cassette tape from the same project, both the voice and the music are strong. Kingsley adopts various voices well, especially for the jackal. The sound track of some 25 minutes seems to be followed by an individual instrumental track of each episode without voices. Well done! The package was on sale, reduced from $12.95.
• Aesop Dress'd Or a Collection of Fables
  2011 Aesop Dress'd Or a Collection of Fables. Bernard Mandeville, based on Jean de La Fontaine. First published in 1704. The Augustan Reprint Society. Digitalized on CD by "The Again Shop." Wordcount: 19504. Pages: 67. Purchased online. Our collection has three copies of the Augustan Reprint digitalized here. This kind of "book" created by a print-recognition device does not have much appeal for me. A photographic reprint of the book has, for me, much more appeal. I suppose that there is a kind of searchability achieved by this digitalization. I did a quick search for "fox" and immediately got 16 "hits." That is a good sign!
• Fables (4 book Collection)
  2010? Fables (4 book Collection). CD offering pdf files of Francis Barlow (1687), Thomas Bewick (1878), Ernest Griset (c. 1869), and Guy Wetmore Carroll's Fables for the Frivolous (1900). Planet-E-Tech. Purchased online. This CD comes from a time when computer afficionados were eager to employ their skills in translating old books into digital form. As they appear on the computer screen, these files were, to me, offputting. Once they are reduced to about 70% of their original size, they take on more of the sharpness of their originals. The Peter Newell illustrations for "Fables for the Frivolous" remain, I believe, overly dark. Griset seems to me always to be overly dark. Why someone would digitize a later edition of Bewick from 1878 and not a first edition is unclear to me. Viewing Barlow will always be a pleasure!
• The Tortoise & the Hare CD-ROM
  1993 The Tortoise & the Hare CD-ROM. Production Manager George Fleischman. Produced in USA. Interactive Publishing Corporation. $10 at the Omaha Computer Swap Meet, May, '98. This is a simple presentation of TH on cartoon slides with the text on the screen highlighted phrase by phrase while it is read. A listener can also click on any word to have it said or on any object to see and hear the word. The reading is enhanced with simple musical background and some sound effects. The speed of the presentation is so slow that it is burdensome to any but those who are learning to read. The text is copyrighted by National Textbook Company, the producers of Tina la Tortuga y Carlos el Conejo/Tina the Turtle and Carlos the Rabbit (1972/90). An audio cassette is included with the same sound track (listed separately under 1993) and so are crayons to color the printable black-and-white slides. To get the CD-ROM running, I followed the sequence Start/Run/D:/OK and double-clicked on the "go.bat" icon. Richie and Tina are very good friends, but Richie wakes up one day in a very bad mood and cannot stop taunting Tina with the things she cannot do while he can. Tina gets angry and demands a race. Throughout these interchanges there is a great little frog observer. There is also a wonderful expression on Richie's face after the lost race. Tina announces to him: "You go far little by little."
• 365 Successful Fables Series
  365 Successful Fables: Each volume has an accompanying disc, which I will keep with the pamphlet. The first four tracks of each disc present the stories a paragraph at a time with alternating Chinese and English. The next four use only Mandarin. Tracks 9 through 12 present the four stories in English. Track 13 is a vocabulary and pronunciation exercise. The speakers tend to exaggerate throughout. There are plentiful sound effects along with a generous musical background. For further comments on individual stories, consult the books of this series. 2008? 365 Successful Fables: The Mice and the Cat. Paperbound. Taiwan: 365 Successful Fables: You Fu Culture Co. Ltd. $10 from Jeremy Weiss, Sleepy Hollow, NY, through eBay, Sept., '12. FW 2 The four fables presented and illustrated in this volume are: "The Mice and the Cat"; "The Parasol and the Travellers"; "The Bird Learning to Neigh"; and "The Frogs and the God." 2008? 365 Successful Fables: The Golden Ax and the Silver Ax. Paperbound. Taiwan: 365 Successful Fables: You Fu Culture Co. Ltd. $10 from Jeremy Weiss, Sleepy Hollow, NY, through eBay, Sept., '12. FW 4 The four fables presented and illustrated in this volume are: "The Golden Ax and the Silver Ax"; "The Lion and the Three Bulls"; "The Dog, The Rooster and The Fox"; and "The Maid and the Rooster." 2008? 365 Successful Fables: The Opportunistic Donkey. Paperbound. Taiwan: 365 Successful Fables: You Fu Culture Co. Ltd. $10 from Jeremy Weiss, Sleepy Hollow, NY, through eBay, Sept., '12. FW 6 The four fables presented and illustrated in this volume are: "The Opportunistic Donkey"; "The Ant and The Dove"; "The Lion and The Bear"; and "The Fox Without a Tail." 2008? 365 Successful Fables: The Greedy Dog. Paperbound. Taiwan: 365 Successful Fables: You Fu Culture Co. Ltd. $10 from Jeremy Weiss, Sleepy Hollow, NY, through eBay, Sept., '12. FW 7 The four fables presented and illustrated in this volume are: "The Greedy Dog"; "The Two Roosters and the Eagle"; "The Doctor and His Patient"; and "The Monkey and The Fisherman." 2008? 365 Successful Fables: The Treasure in the Grape Grove. Paperbound. Taiwan: 365 Successful Fables: You Fu Culture Co. Ltd. $10 from Jeremy Weiss, Sleepy Hollow, NY, through eBay, Sept., '12. FW 8 The four fables presented and illustrated in this volume are: "The Treasure In the Grape Garden"; "The Wolf and The Egret"; "The Host and His Friend"; and "The Crow and The Fox." 2008? 365 Successful Fables: The Fox and the Food. Paperbound. Taiwan: 365 Successful Fables: You Fu Culture Co. Ltd. $10 from Jeremy Weiss, Sleepy Hollow, NY, through eBay, Sept., '12. FW 9 The four fables presented and illustrated in this volume are: "The Fisherman and the Fish"; "The Fox and The Food"; "The Snobbish Monk"; and "The Wolf and the Lion." 2008? 365 Successful Fables: The Fox and the Crane. Paperbound. Taiwan: 365 Successful Fables: You Fu Culture Co. Ltd. $10 from Jeremy Weiss, Sleepy Hollow, NY, through eBay, Sept., '12. FW 10 The four fables presented and illustrated in this volume are: "The Fox and the Crane"; "The Donkey and the Horse"; "The Deer and the Hunter"; and "The Farmer and the Eagle." 2008? 365 Successful Fables: The Businessman and the Golden Lion. Paperbound. Taiwan: 365 Successful Fables: You Fu Culture Co. Ltd. $10 from Jeremy Weiss, Sleepy Hollow, NY, through eBay, Sept., '12. FW 11. The four fables presented and illustrated in this volume are: "The Businessman and the Golden Lion"; "The Bird's Beauty Pageant"; Father and his Daughters"; and "The Fox and the Cicada." 2008? 365 Successful Fables: The North Wind and the Sun. Paperbound. Taiwan: 365 Successful Fables: You Fu Culture Co. Ltd. $10 from Jeremy Weiss, Sleepy Hollow, NY, through eBay, Sept., '12. FW 12. The four fables presented and illustrated in this volume are: WS; "The Emperor and the Minister"; "The Donkey, the Dog and the Master"; and "The Lion and the Hare."
• Fábulas CD 2
  2000 Fábulas CD 2. For use with Fábulas Con Compact Disc. Barcelona: Oceano Multimedia; Oceano Grup Editorial. $22.40 for the book and two CD's from amazon.com, Feb., '03. There are thirteen fables here, running from two to four minutes each. Like its twin, this CD provides a nice musical approach to the stories, "las mejores fábulas de todos los tiempos." They offer good dramatic voices for the characters. A short flute-melody marks the time to turn the page. The understanding of "fable" is broad here, and so the collection includes "The Pied Piper of Hamlin" and "La Yerba Mate." Stories I cannot recognize include "Boca Ancha," "La Sirenita," and "El Viento Zonda."
• Fábulas CD 1
  2000 Fábulas CD 1. For use with Fábulas Con Compact Disc. Barcelona: Oceano Multimedia; Oceano Grup Editorial. $22.40 for the book and two CD's from amazon.com, Feb., '03. There are fourteen fables here, running from two to four minutes each. Like its twin, this CD provides a nice musical approach to the stories, "las mejores fábulas de todos los tiempos." They offer good dramatic voices for the characters. A short flute-melody marks the time to turn the page. The understanding of "fable" is broad here, and so the collection includes "El Cultivo del Maíz," "Popul-Vuh," and "The Musicians of Bremen." Stories I cannot recognize include "A Margarita" and "Los Cangrejos." The man who had fallen in love with a cat finds another girl to marry, and they both care for his beloved cat (61).
• The Rabbit Who Overcame Fear/The Hunter and the Quail
  2004 The Rabbit Who Overcame Fear/The Hunter and the Quail. Oakland: Jataka Tales for Children: Dharma Publishing. $3 from the publisher, Dec., '04. This CD-Rom, produced together with a coloring book containing the texts, presents the stories in two booklets with these same titles published earlier. There are several voices--poorly recorded--with music and good sound effects. The first is the standard tale of the timid rabbit who hears the thud of a ripe mango dropping and thinks it is the end of the world. On the CD-Rom, the rabbit is female, while the book's rabbit is male. The accent here is on the altruism of the lion who stops the animals from running off a cliff into the sea. "The Sage" is a wise quail who lives happily with his family in a deep forest. A clever bird-hunter lures the quails with clever calls and throws nets over them. The Sage suggests to his family that, when trapped by the hunter's net, they should poke their heads through an opening and then beat their "wings in a flurry and take to the air." They do what is suggested and it succeeds. They come down over a thorn bush and can wriggle out underneath the net and bush. After some recurrences, the hunter's wife chides him upon his empty-handed return home. The hunter answers that soon enough the spirit of cooperation will dwindle among the quail, and he will be bringing home prey again. He turns out to be right. The Sage takes his family away to safety, but those remaining bicker and are taken. "So it was in ancient times that quarreling birds were captured by the hunters, but those who learned to work together could escape the cleverest foe."
• A Precious Life/The Magic of Patience
  2001 A Precious Life/The Magic of Patience. Illustrated by Rosalyn White. Paperbound. Oakland: A Jataka Tale Coloring Book: Dharma Publishing. $3 from the publisher, Dec., '04. This CD-Rom -Rom, produced together with a coloring book containing the texts, presents the stories in two booklets with these same titles published earlier. There are several voices--not always successful--with music and good sound effects. In "The Magic of Patience," the Great Being, who is a buffalo, lives within a jungle with a mischievous monkey. The monkey plays constant tricks on the buffalo, but the buffalo remains patient with his pranks and foolishness. A forest sprite asks the buffalo why he puts up with this creature whom he could easily crush. The buffalo answers that the monkey is doing him a favor by teaching him patience. The sprite asks how he can learn patience, and the buffalo answers that you need a real rascal. Gentle and kind creatures will not help. The sprite goes off, and it turns out that the monkey has overheard the conversation. He asks the buffalo for forgiveness. In "A Precious Life," the Great Being, who is a deer, shows mercy to the prince who had tried to hunt and kill him. In fact, the deer revives him after a terrible accident at a ravine during the pursuit. The deer carries him out of the ravine. Offered whatever he wants, the deer asks the hunter to renounce hunting animals. The hunter henceforth realizes that any animal he encounters might be a Great Being.
• Fables de La Fontaine
  2003 Fables de La Fontaine. Racontées par Divers. Musique de Benoît Pimont. Made in Germany. Editions Thierry Magnier: France Bleu. €23 from Bon Marché, Paris, Jan., '05. Here are fifteen fables, also presented in an accompanying book. See my comments there. There are many narrators. The variety is pleasant. Each fable is titled, and there is a pleasant musical interlude in each pause. 25 minutes, 35 seconds.
• Aesop's Fables for Children
  2008 Aesop's Fables for Children. Dover "Listen and Read" CD. Included in the book of the same name, illustrated by Milo Winter. Mineola, NY: Dover Pictorial Archive Series: Dover Publications. $10.39 from Amazon.com, Feb., '10. This CD accompanies the fine reprint of the classic The Aesop for Children published in 1919 by Rand McNally. I am delighted to see that Dover is reprinting this book and doing it so well! I have long recommended that people try Border's or Barnes and Noble for one of their reprint editions. This may be an even better bet because of the quality of the illustration-printing and because of the CD. I will keep the CD with the book.
• Aesop's Story: English Version
  2003 Aesop's Story: English Version. Versions by Mary Drake. Boxed set of seven books and two CD's. Aesop's Story: L.K. Family: L.K. Sellobby Korea. $10 from Jennifer Moon, Los Angeles, through eBay, August, '05. This CD contains seven strong stories to match seven strong books. The stories are: OF, FC, TMCM, STH, LM, "The Lion and the Boar," and GA. This CD has just the English version. It is well done in native voices, with good musical background and sound effects. At the end of each story a female narrator asks "Did you enjoy the story?" See also the Korean disk below in the same boxed offering. See also the catalogue entries for the seven books.
• fablanimo de la ferme
  1999 fablanimo de la ferme. Narration et interpretations des personages: Bernard Fortin. Auteure: Roxane Lapointe. Musique: Jimmy Tanaka. Montreal: GSI Musique. $2.49 from Chantal Piton, St-Luc, Quebec, Canada through eBay, August, '06. Here is a CD-ROM contained in a tall, carefully crafted pamphlet of 28 pages enclosed in stiff covers, the front cover with a nice see-through window to view the characters in the farmyard. The booklet and the audio CD-ROM work together well. The booklet catalogues the lyrics of the strong CD-ROM. I listened to the first three of the twelve selections. The first introduces us to the characters of the farmyard. In the second, the ass Firmin is afraid of the long trip he will have to take to deliver the farm's children to a festival. The cat Mistigri lets him know that the festival is close by. He has little to fear. In "Elle s'appelle Bergamotte," Bergamotte the turkey insults Firmin. Soon enough a fox is ready to attack and eat Bergamotte. Firmin becomes aware of it, struggles with his hurt feelings, and finally helps Bergamotte. The illustrations are good, and the vocal renderings are excellent. The voices, animal adaptations, and articulations are all very well done! I will leave the CD-ROM in the pamphlet. The inside front-cover promises more fablanimo editions for the forest, sea, jungle and other venues.
• Aesop's Fables: Kids Can Read! Interactive CD-ROM
  1994 Aesop's Fables: Kids Can Read! Interactive CD-ROM. No authors acknowledged. Illustrations after Arthur Rackham. Buffalo, NY: Kids Can Read!: Discis Knowledge Research. $4.99 from Tabo O'Connor, Mesa AZ through Ebay, Feb., '99. Ten fables are presented with one illustration adapted from Arthur Rackham for each. One can hear the text read in English. One can also click on objects or words for names, sound effects, syllables, Spanish, or more explanation. Included are "The Crab & his Mother," FG, GA, "The Travellers & the Plane Tree," CP, DS, TMCM, "The Cat & the Birds," "The Quack Frog," and FC. Technology moves quickly enough that this disk may have some compatibility problems with computers younger than it. I had to go to "Start," "Run," and "D: install" with a double click on "Discis.exe" to get it going in my new machine.
• Aesop's Fables
  2001 Aesop's Fables. Editor: Yu-A Vision. Seoul, Korea: EntersKorea. 7000 Won from Kyobo Books, Seoul, July, '04. This tape accompanies Story Books Step 1: Aesop's Fables. They sold together for 7000 Won. There are two stories: TMCM and GGE. The country meal in TMCM features, according to the text, "only potatoes and corns" (6). The city meal is interrupted by a woman with a broom, who is flanked by a cat. "The Hen that lays Golden Eggs" starts "There are old man and woman" (18). They pray "Please make this hen lays a golden egg only once!" I have never seen this prayer before as part of the story. After the two stories are told and illustrated, there is a bilingual script for TMCM, including wives for the two mice, two kids, and a landlady. For a book produced by "native speakers" there are far too many mistakes here, like "Vegetable are put on the table" and "with a disappointment" (34). The script is followed by a chant (44) and a song (45). Finally, after a bilingual presentation of the text of the two stories, there are words (49-endpaper) and stickers (inserted) for key vocabulary in the two stories. The tape begins with the song by the two mice. The tape then follows the texts of the two stories exactly as they appear on 6-17 and 18-29, respectively. The tape offers the words on 49 through the endpaper for listeners to repeat with the children's voices on the tape. Next, a reader reads through the stories, and listeners are invited to repeat it with the children's voices on the tape. Listening to these repetitions almost drove me crazy! The tape ends with the chant (44).
• Averse to Beasts:Twenty-Three Reasonless Rhymes
  1994 Averse to Beasts:Twenty-Three Reasonless Rhymes. Written, Illustrated, and Read by Nick Bantock. Hardbound. Printed in Hong Kong. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. $5 from Sebastopol Antique Mall, June, '99. This book comes together with a tape, which presents the twenty-three poems well in a live performance (at "The Trough" no less!) with introductory comments and sound effects. Bantock is well known for the "Griffin & Sabine" series, and this book is worthy of him. There are perhaps four fables here. In "Bad Manners," a turkey vulture schooled to culture still eats the waiter along with the meal! "Harvest Mouse" is something of an answer to Beatrix Potter, but it only reinforces the old fable wisdom that a mouse out in a field will be eaten by a hawk. "The Warrior's Way" is a satire on contemporary yuppie samurai. This one uses a sword to defeat a warrior-fly but cuts off his own nose in the process! "Old School Ties" has fun with "allege" and "alligator" but in the process shows--as I understand it--that judges might follow old school loyalties rather than process or evidence. One item ("The Wolf at the Door") parodies WL in applying it to urban human wolves. The other pieces have fun with words (e.g., "Hitch" and "Aero Dynamics"), with shapes (e.g., "Appendages"), and with fantasies (e.g., "Rabbit's Revenge"). Each poem is done on a left-page with an illustration facing on the right-page. Among the best illustrations are "Bad Manners," "Thick Soup," "Carnivorous," "Appendages," "Preparing My Giraffe for a Formal Occasion," and especially "Harvest Mouse."
• Jean de La Fontaine: Oh! les belles fables!
  1993 Jean de La Fontaine: Oh! les belles fables! Dit par Albert Millaire. Musique de Alexandre Stanké. Grand Auteurs/petits lecteurs. Stanké livre & cassette. Canada: Les éditions internationales Alain Stanké. Tape and booklet for $15.95 Canadian at Coles, Montreal, Oct., '95. A very nice set. I find the tape's reading and sound-effects stronger than the book's illustrations. Each side of the cassette presents eight fables. The first side takes seventeen minutes, while the second takes somewhat more than eighteen minutes. See my listing also of the book and of a compact disk that seem to have come out together..
• The Friendly Snowflake
  1992 The Friendly Snowflake. A Fable of Faith, Love and Family. Written and read by M. Scott Peck. NY: Caedmon: HarperCollins Publishers. Gift of Linda Schlafer, Christmas, '93. Jenny meets a friendly little snowflake named Harry. Big questions: Was it just an accident that Harry fell on her nose? Are big snowflakes a family? She learns that Harry may well be back next year. The tape comes with a snowflake ornament.
• The Tiger and the Brahmin
  1991 The Tiger and the Brahmin. Written by Brian Gleeson. Told by Ben Kingsley. Music by Ravi Shankar. Boxed for use with an accompanying book of the same title published in 1992. Rowayton, CT: Rabbit Ears Productions. $20 by mail from Elaine Woodford, Haddonfield, NJ, Oct., '97. A lively tape to go with a very lively book. Both the voice and the music are strong. Kingsley adopts various voices well, especially for the jackal. Both the book and the tape are very well done. See also the compact disk and poster from the same project.
• "The Mice's Thanksgiving."
  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.
• Frederick and His Friends
  1989 Frederick and His Friends. Leo Lionni. A Knopf Book and Cassette Classic. Music by Blane and DeRosa Productions. Tape manufactured in Singapore. NY: Dragonfly Books: Alfred A. Knopf. Part of a set of four books and a tape. $2 at Heartwood, Charlottesville, VA, April, '92. Great stories well read: "Frederick," "Swimmy," "Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse," and "Fish is Fish." Nice musical accompaniment.
• [Korean]. (Aesop's Fables)
  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.
• Le Rat de ville, Le Rat des champs
  1987? Le Rat de ville, Le Rat des champs. Printed in Spain. Distributed with a 1987? book of the same title. Made in Spain by Gema, S.L. ©Peralt Montagut Editions. Together $9.95 at europa books, Chicago, March, '95. The front cover of the cassette has "Camps" rather than "Champs." Good sound effects. The court mouse seems to be female, to judge from the voice, though the text and pictures present two males. About four minutes, the same on each side of the cassette. Note that I also have a German version, listed under 1988.
• Modern Fables
  1987 Modern Fables. 44 minutes on one side. Read and prepared by Bernard Jackson and Susie Quintenella. 309-7. The Peoples Publishing Group, Inc. Unknown source. There are regular references to pages to be read while one listens to the tape. I have tried a couple of the stories, and I find them good. They deal with humans--specifically children--rather than animals. They remain short enough to be good fables. In the first story on Side A, "The Little Guy," little Jimmy is only a football fan. Jimmy does a Heimlich maneuver on the choking Alfred, the football player, and so saves him. He thus repays a favor. "Size doesn't always count." "Such Good Friends" at the start of Side B is about a schoolboy thief Lee and his friend Eric. Of course only the latter is caught. "You will be judged by the friends you keep." The introduction makes the point that the morals used here are those Aesop used.
• Aesop's Fables in Song
  1987 Aesop's Fables in Song. Ralph Martell. Hollywood, CA: Ralmar Enterprises. May, '91. Ten delightful songs to accompany the book of the same name. Martell's voice is not as good as his music and lyrics. Nice variety of contemporary rhythms. Some sing-along possibilities.