To
hear a fable read by Boris Karloff, click on the cover of his cassette on the
left.
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.
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!"
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 "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.
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.
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.
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.
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..
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 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."
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 ministrel 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?
