Tales of a Long Afternoon

Swiss author Max Bolliger combines five of Aesop's fables in Tales of a Long Afternoon, creating a single narrative about the power of story, both to offend and to reconcile. When the fox, raven, turtle, hare, peacock, crow, wolf, and dog meet in the meadow one afternoon, they decide to have an impromptu party, eventually regaling each other with tales.

But when fox tells the story of The Fox and the Raven, in which a vain raven is fooled by a clever fox, raven is deeply offended; just as hare is enraged by turtle's recitation of The Turtle and the Hare. Similarly, crow is angered by peacock's telling of The Peacock and the Crow, and dog upset by wolf's rendition of The Wolf and the Dog. The friends, divided now into two opposing camps, show more are soon at one another's throats. Into this tense situation steps the lion, and his retelling of The Lion and the Mouse soon sets all to rights...

This is not the first picture-book I have read, in which various fables attributed to Aesop are worked into a larger story - Aki Sogabe's Aesop's Fox springs to mind in this regard - but it was the first one to succeed in such an endeavor. Although his narrative was not particularly compelling, I did think that Bollinger's text hung together fairly well. The illustrations, by Czech artist Jindra Capek, were colorful and engaging, although there were some pages where the "distribution" of artwork along the bottom edge, with text and blank white page above, was somewhat distracting. Still, this was an interesting addition to my Aesop shelf, and a fascinating glimpse of European picture-book conventions during the late 1980s. show less

This picture is a retelling of five of Aesop's fables with the animals. A single narrative is created through several stories one afternoon when the fox, raven, turtle, hare, peacock, crow, wolf, and dog have a party and entertaining each other with their tales. But it leads to one animal being offend by another animal's tale of the recitation. For example, with The Turtle And The Hare, the hare is offended by the turtle's tale of how she beat the hare in the race like. From there, the friends are divided into two opposing sides, and getting into a physical and verbal war with each other. They continue until the lion appears and tells his story of The Lion and The Mouse and how his story has help the animals to recollect themselves and show more be friends again.

This is an interesting picture book because it's a retelling of the Aesop's fables of The Fox and The Raven, The Turtle And The Hare, The Peacock And The Crow, The Wolf And The Dog, and The Lion And The Mouse. The author does an excellent job with connecting the single narrative into short stories that leads into the main narrative and idea. Also, I learn that telling stories, whether it's folklore, fairytale, short or long story, should be fun and entertaining because that's what telling stories is all about in the end. In addition, friendships shouldn't change because of how a story is told. This is a good book to read to children as they get engage in the classics of Aesop's fables. Overall, I love and enjoy this book. show less