Joel Chandler Harris (1845–1908)

One of the older books in our home library. Our copy was purchased in 1946 at the Wren's Nest, the Joel Chandler Harris house, as a present for my wife's mother when she was a five-year-old in North Carolina.

Uncle Remus himself does not appear, as the book is just a selection of seven Brer Rabbit and/or Brer Fox stories, with predators and prey going at it like Tom and Jerry, Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny, or Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.

I found the prose a bit hard to follow at times, and show more the tales weren't particularly clever despite all the trickster antics. I guess matching wits isn't particularly engaging when it involves so many dimwits.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents: Brer Rabbit and the Calamus Root -- The Wonderful Tar Baby -- Mr. Wolf Makes a Failure -- Mr. Fox Tackles Old Man Tarrypin -- Old Mr. Rabbit, He's a Good Fisherman -- Why Mr. Possum Has No Hair on His Tail -- Mr. Rabbit Meets His Match show less

This book is based on a book called Uncle Remus: His Songs and his Sayings, which was based on tales passed on by enslaved African-Americans. Its stories are very similar to fables in that they are about personified animals who trick each other constantly, but none of these tales have explicit morals at their conclusions. As the book's introduction states, "These stories do not focus at all on the triumph of good over evil or on the need for punishment: they are African folklore, not show more European myth or legend. The stories deal with tricks for the sake of trickery, with outsmarting the other fellow..." (p. 5).

My favorite story, which my dad read to me when I was younger, is "The Wonderful Tar Baby Story", which is about Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit, who are always tricking each other. In this story, Brer Fox wants to get even with Brer Rabbit, so he sets the Tar Baby out on the road and waits for Brer Rabbit to come along. He watches and laughs while Brer Rabbit gets frustrated that the Tar Baby is not responding to his friendly chatter, and hits and kicks the Tar Baby until all of his limbs and finally his head are stuck in the tar.

This is a great treasury of folklore which could be used in multiple ways in the classroom - in a unit on folklore, in a unit on slavery, in a unit on storytelling and oral tradition, or even in a simple lesson about personification. This collection could also be used to teach students about the differences between European folklore and fables and African folklore and fables. show less

Uncle Remus is the fictional title character and narrator of a collection of African American folktales compiled and adapted by Joel Chandler Harris and published in book form in 1881. Harris was a journalist in post–Reconstruction era Atlanta, and he produced seven Uncle Remus books. He did so by introducing tales that he had heard and framing them in the plantation context. He wrote his stories in a dialect which was his interpretation of the Deep South African-American language of the show more time. For these framing and stylistic choices, Harris's collection has garnered controversy since its publication show less

Traditional
I don't think this is the version/ edition I actually read, but it was Bre'r Rabbit stories re-told by Joel Chandler Harris. I LOVED this book. It was so rich in culture and language and morality. I read the introduction from the woman who was a librarian at the Harlem Library and her experiences searching for a version of these stories that would seem true and helpful to African American children without being overtly racist towards them, and it was very inspirational. During show more this Children's Lit class, I have been exploring a lot of African American Literature, and it has been fascinating to read and learn about the experiences of others in a first-hand way through their stories and literature, without the filter of other/ visual media.
This is a great collection of stories that I think anyone would enjoy. They are light-hearted and comical, endearing and informational. I would definitely keep this book in a classroom library for students to peruse. show less