Animal Tales, the Dial Book of: From Around the World

Similarly multicultural in focus, The Dial Book of Animal Tales, retold by Naomi Adler, uses animals to explain natural phenomena and to examine human nature. Adler collected these nine folktales, from ""Never Trust a Pelican"" (Thai) to ""The Monkey's Heart"" (African), in her global travels as a storyteller. The stories display great variation, as befits their diverse origins, but also fit squarely into the tradition of Aesop's Fables and Kipling's Just-So Stories. Amanda Hall's colorful borders, and menagerie of stylized animals which threads through the tales, evoke the traditional artistic styles of each country.