Creighton University Archives and Special Collections

Carlson Fable Collection

Item Set

Items

• 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.
• Aesop's Fables
  1986 Aesop's Fables. Look Listen 'N Play audio and visual set. Playtime. Usborne Publishing. (Text of Carol Watson from Aesop's Fables and Animal Stories, 1982, unacknowledged.) For use with filmstrip. About 15 minutes. $.77 at Kay-Bee, Council Bluffs, March, '91. One extra. Six fables of the ten in the printed version (TH, "The Crow and the Jug," AD, TMCM, LM, GA). Good voices and sound effects, satisfactory background music. Some small changes in the versions, including interchanging the sexes of the ant and the grasshopper. The two sides of the tape seem identical.
• Cuentos Inolvidables #17
  1984? Cuentos Inolvidables #17. Grupo de Teatro "Los Campanilleros". Madrid: Discos Mercurio. Delightful Spanish renditions of GA, TH, GGE (but with a hen) with music and fine voices. Picking up the Spanish on the first hop may not be easy!
• City Mouse, Country Mouse And Two More Tales from Aesop
  1984? City Mouse, Country Mouse And Two More Tales from Aesop. Clover Patch Collection. A Scholastic Classic. Providence, RI: Entertainment Software Corp. LM. BC. Three-minute presentations not terribly well done. Apparently Jacobs' translation adapted. The voices of the mice seem to be fast-forwarded tapes. Nice music and good narrator.
• Aesop's Fables
  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!
• The Kingdom Lost and Found. A fable for everyone.
  1984 The Kingdom Lost and Found. A fable for everyone. Read by Jack Carney. 28 minutes. ©Mary Terese Donze, ASC. Privately produced. Gift of the author, Jan., '01. Prince Leaf of Filc in Norway in an emotion-laden tale seeks, in peril of his life, the person who can make unbreakable bubbles. He finds the woodcutter/magician who can do it. King Olaf, sullen since he lost Queen Ingebord, tries to break them and soon becomes obsessed with them as they double in number every day. They smash, heat, and bury them--to no avail. When Leaf revisits the woodcutter to ask him to stop the bubble menace, the woodcutter first tempts him with the chance to settle elsewhere as a prince. When Leaf insists on helping his father, the woodcutter gives him the solution. Saying "I love you" sincerely breaks the bubbles and rekindles humane feelings in the kingdom.
• The Best of Aesop & Other Classic Fables
  1984 The Best of Aesop & Other Classic Fables. Marshall Cavendish Ltd. London: Barge Studios. For use with book (1985) of same title. Great readers, great sound effects. This tape follows the booklet verbatim. The only drawback for use in a presentation lies in the readers' British accents.
• Aesop's Fables
  1983 Aesop's Fables. Made for use with Ten Best-Loved Aesop's Fables and My Big FunThinker Book of Fun with Fables. Speaker not acknowledged. Made in Hong Kong. FunThinkers. Compton, CA: Educational Insights. Gift of Kathryn Thomas. Excellent voices. Clever interviews and discussions before and after the ten fables. Very well integrated with the print material. Artistically alert; for example, finger-snapping music introduces the story in which the fox's tail gets snapped off. The fox has a French accent with crow but a British accent when he loses his tail. The crow comes back and pecks at the fox after the story of the lost cheese. The tortoise is slow in speech, too. Ms. Hare says "Watch me next time!"
• "The Fox and the Grapes" Audio Cassette
  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.
• "The Fox and the Crow" Audio Cassette
  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.
• "The Crow and the Pitcher" Audio Cassette
  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.
• The Tortoise & the Hare
  1993 The Tortoise & the Hare. Production Manager George Fleischman. Produced in USA. Interactive Publishing Corporation. $10 from Omaha Computer Swap Meet, May, '98. This audio cassette reproduces the narrative of the CD-ROM of the same name, year, and manufacturer. See my notes there. The reading is enhanced with simple musical background and some sound effects. 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). 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. Tina announces to him: "You go far little by little."
• The Lion & the Mouse
  1993 The Lion & the Mouse. Production Manager George Fleischman. Produced in USA. Interactive Publishing Corporation. $10 at the Omaha Computer Swap Meet, May, '98. This audio cassette reproduces the narrative of the CD-ROM of the same name, year, and manufacturer. See my notes there. The text is copyrighted by National Textbook Company, the producers of Leonardo el León y Ramon el Ratón/Leonard the Lion and Raymond the Mouse (1978/90). Leonard and Marty are the characters here. The story is told in the present tense. "I don't make a good meal, but I do make a good friend" Marty pleads.
• The City Mouse & the Country Mouse
  1993 The City Mouse & the Country Mouse. Production Manager George Fleischman. Produced in USA. Interactive Publishing Corporation. $10 at the Omaha Computer Swap Meet, May, '98. This audio cassette reproduces the narrative of the CD-ROM of the same name, year, and manufacturer. See my notes there. The text is copyrighted by National Textbook Company, the producers of Chiquita y Pepita (1978/89). Molly (CM) and Margaret (TM) are cousins. Molly invites Margaret to a party along with a number of friends. A large dog attacks in the city even before the mice get to food. Molly drinks some wine with Margaret helping by holding the glass. At dinner a cat attacks. Further, loud noises like the clock's bonging bother Molly.
• French Railways (SNCF) advertisement based on GA from a British magazine
  1950? French Railways (SNCF) advertisement based on GA from a British magazine. 4¼" x 11¼". Gift of Susan Carlson, Dec., '24. As Susie said in giving me this extraordinary piece of advertising, it is a "crossover" of my interests in railways and fables. The text here has little reference to the story of GA. The ant takes charge of the pair's holiday together. "Ideal travel is a combination of speed, comfort, and economy!" The grasshopper answers that those are his very thoughts and that is why he has already bought the tickets. The best clue I can find for dating this unusual piece is that trains in France are in the process of "more electrification." Good going, SNCF!
• "No Sour Grapes in This Bunch…they're all honeys!"
  1942? "No Sour Grapes in This Bunch…they're all honeys!" Advertisement for TruVal shirts, pajamas, and sportswear. Unknown magazine. $10 from an unknown source, Feb., '24. The black-and-white fox here appears elsewhere and even in color in further TruVal advertisements. Notice the urgent plea for experienced seamen for the Merchant Marine. Does the magazine insert this kind of extra invitation into someone else's advertisement?
• Velvet Smokie Tobacco
  1925? Velvet Smoking Tobacco. Unknown magazine. $10 from an unknown source, Feb., '24. "A race ain't all in getting' started first" says the terrapin as he passes the rabbit on the road. The bespectacled terrapin is of course smoking a pipe as he passes the sleeping hare. It has been fun trying to date this advertisement. Clues include the reference to "Velvet Joe" and the markings on the tobacco tin. Velvet is boasting of the slow start their tobacco gets by being aged two years.