How the Whale Became and Other Stories - Ted Hughes
I came across this one at the library while looking for books for Ridley. I was always a fan of Rudyard Kipling's "Just So Stories" about how animals came about, and this struck me as a similar collection. The major difference here (besides style, O Best Beloved) is that God figures more prominently in Hughes' stories, though he's sort of a glorified man who has the ability to breathe life into things but isn't all-knowing or all-powerful. It does allow for a very funny story about the whale, though.
They're all quite wonderful stories—only one or two that felt a little weaker, but imaginative and most illustrating consequences of various faults: greed, pride, envy. In that, they're a little more like fables than Kipling's stories (from what I remember of them). The illustrations by Jackie Morris are beautiful and fitting, though in the cases where animals changed their appearances throughout the story, she doesn't always capture that change.
A little advanced for Ridley currently, but I'm sure I'll revisit them when she's older.
Fed to jonathan's brain | May 03, 2006
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